


Settling Accounts

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:59:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15338397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: This is a continuation of the "Paying the Price" universe, a continuation that explores Hal's life as he works to re-build it. Readers who are interested might want to begin with that work, which can be readhere, or you can just start with this one if you prefer. The caveat is, this continuation is entirely absent the plot of Part One, and is more along the lines of a psychological character study. It's a blatantly self-indulgent way to spend more time in a universe I love, but four years after writing this story I find I still have questions about it, so I thought I would try to answer some of those to my satisfaction, and hopefully some of my readers' as well.





	1. Chapter 1

“Why don’t you want Sol for dinner here?”

Bruce was leaning against the bathroom door, watching Hal shave. He tapped his razor against the side of the sink, rinsed it, started in on the left side. “Well,” he began, buying time. “I dunno.” He wiped with a towel. “I didn’t say I didn’t _want_ to have him here. Just thought it would be easier at my place, since he’ll be staying there.”

Bruce was studying him from the doorway. It was a bad habit he had, lurking in doorways. They had had a dog growing up, when Hal was young, before they had had to give it away because the vet bills got too much. A big goofy golden Lab. Its main gift had been positioning itself in doorways so you had to pull a groin muscle just getting past it. Bruce had the same gift for stolidly positioning himself right where people would have to squeeze past him. Right now he had his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Hal.

“And,” Hal said, because clearly Bruce was not going to go away. “And, yes, I thought it might considerably lower his freak-out factor not to have him here, yes. So sue me.” He finished wiping his hands, and tossed the towel in the corner bin. 

“I could go with you to Watson to pick him up.”

“Yep,” Hal said. “ _Or_ , you could wait here, and let me get him settled, and then come join us for dinner later on. Move, Rusty, I need to get my clothes.” He edged past Bruce in the doorway.

“What did you call me?”

“It was just—never mind. Look, let me just see how he is, okay? Could be that dinner needs to happen tomorrow night instead of tonight. I’m not gonna know how much normal life he can take until I talk to him. So try to increase your zero level of chill for once, yeah?”

Bruce snorted. He was still cross-armed in the doorway, just facing the other direction and aiming his glare into the bedroom now, while Hal was trying to locate his clothes. It wasn’t like this was a new argument; it happened more or less every time Hal went upstate to Watson, which was to say, every other week or so. Bruce would make noises about coming with him, which Hal would ignore, and then Bruce would watch him get dressed, that same narrow glare on his face. Bruce didn’t like him anywhere within fifty miles of that place, and it was no fucking mystery why. Hal couldn’t blame him, would probably have been the same way himself. It did not, however, make his Saturdays any easier. At least this was the last time. 

“Look, I’ll call you on the drive, all right? I’ll need you to keep me awake, babe, on account of losing quite a bit of sleep last night,” he said with a smirk. 

“Ah yes,” Bruce said, deadpan. “A sex reference. Now I’ve completely forgotten everything I was going to say.”

Hal sighed. “For fuck’s sake.”

“Let Alfred drive you. He’s got nothing to do this morning. You can take your wretched Honda if you want, but let Alfred drive.”

“A, my car is not wretched. B, Alfred is not my servant, he’s yours, and you can’t loan him out like a lawnmower. C, I’m going by myself, and I’ll call you on the way, now can you please fucking move.” He pushed past on his way back to the bathroom, picking up yesterday’s pants from the pile on the floor and rifling through them for his wallet. He found it finally, and slipped it in his jeans. When he turned around Bruce was back in the doorway, a little more Cerberus than Labrador, if he was being honest. Hal barreled past him again.

“Call you from the car,” he said, headed to the bedroom door.

“Who’s Rusty?” Bruce called, and Hal laughed, shut the bedroom door on his way out.

* * *

Two weeks ago had been his first appointment with Dinah. He had sat there like he had been called to the principal’s office, staring at the floor. 

“You did call me,” she had said gently, as she sat there waiting for him to talk.

“Yeah,” he said, omitting the part about how it had been more or less under duress, but that was not something he needed her to know. “I feel guilty,” he finally said, making himself meet her eyes. It was the same Dinah he had always known, the same keen compassionate eyes. He just wished they were a little less keen, right now.

“Guilty about what?”

“Ah, well, guilty for getting out of prison, I guess, for being free. Lots of guys I know aren’t, maybe never will be. You know, survivor’s guilt, that sort of thing.”

She was silent. He had thought maybe she would be all over that survivor’s guilt thing. It had sounded good in the car. “Also prison was pretty traumatic,” he offered. 

“I’m sure it was.”

"My childhood sucked balls in every direction, too."

"I've heard that, yes."

“Yeah. Okay. Um, aren’t you supposed to be helping me talk, or something? Instead of just sitting there silently staring at me?”

“I get paid whether you talk to me or not. But sitting here in silence is preferable to being bullshitted, if I had to pick how to spend an hour.”

“Fuck you,” he said. She got out her pad and started doodling. 

“Look,” he said in desperation, after a minute or so of that. “Can you just. . . give me something, and we can be done here?”

“Give you what?” She looked puzzled.

“Give me – a prescription, or something. Some meds. Something to help with the—sleeping.”

“Are you having a hard time sleeping?”

“Yes,” he lied. 

“I don’t think you’re having a hard time sleeping,” she said.

“Fuck you, what the fuck would you know about how I’m sleeping? You and Bruce have a little heart-to-heart about that too, did you?”

Her eyes flicked up at that. “You think Bruce and I have been talking about you?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I would assume so. Probably. Who the fuck knows.”

“Is he the reason you’re sitting here today?”

Hal’s turn to sit there in silence. He rubbed at his forehead. She didn’t go back to doodling, but watched him. “May I try?” she said, and her voice was gentle. He nodded. She leaned forward in her chair.

“I don’t think you’re having trouble sleeping. I think you’re having trouble waking. I think every minute of consciousness is probably painful for you. Everything you’ve been trained to do has been taken away from you. Flying has been taken away from you, and that’s got to feel like a limb has been amputated. Even your situation with the Corps has changed, and the new Lanterns are only a reminder of how much you’ve lost. Prison changed everything, but everyone is expecting you to be the same. And you’re carrying tremendous, unsolvable guilt because you can’t make that true, because you can’t meet those expectations. How’m I doing?”

“Not bad,” he said through strangled throat. 

“You’re supposed to be happy now,” she said quietly. 

He was silent again, knotting and unknotting his hands. “And,” she said. He looked up.

“And,” she continued. “If you say you’re unhappy – to anyone, but most of all to him – he might think it’s because you’re not happy with him, and it might hurt him. So the Everything Is All Right Show goes on 24/7, and that has to be exhausting.”

He put his head in his hands. “This is a place where the show can end,” she said. “That’s about all I can do. I can make a place where the minute you close that door behind you, you can set the show aside, for fifty minutes at least. It’s okay to be miserable here.”

His fingers were digging into his skull. He knew she would sit there and wait, all hour if she had to. Well. Bruce had said she was good.

“Sometimes,” he said. He took a breath. “Sometimes I go down to the airfield and park the car and just sit there. Just watch them take off. I ration it out, try to not go for a while. But I can’t stay away. I don’t know how to – I can’t fix it. I’m not insurable, I know that, I’m not getting in a cockpit of a fighter jet ever again, I know that. But I just like to watch.”

“Does anyone know you do that?”

“Oh hell no.”

“How are things with Barry?”

“Better. All right. Step by step I guess. He’s not drinking now, so there’s that.”

“You’ve been a big support for him.”

“Trying to.”

“He’s not exactly the person you can take your problems to, these days.”

“Ah, no. He’s a little too fragile for that. We’re a little too fragile for that, truth be told.”

“Mm.”

“You disagree?”

“Nope.” She resumed doodling. Or she was taking notes. He really couldn’t tell. Notes in pictograms, maybe. “You know,” she said after a bit, “my job is not an easy one.”

“Whoa now, it’s not a contest Di.”

“I just mean, I would have a very hard time doing what I do – my day job and my night job, that is – if I didn’t have someone I could go home and rant to. Just a place to be honest.”

He nodded tightly. “I’m just saying,” she said. “What do you think would happen if you went home and said Bruce, I’m so unhappy I can almost not breathe, sometimes?”

He was silent. “Hal,” she said.

“He worked very hard to get me out, all right? I can’t be. . . ungrateful.”

The room was quiet for a while. He worked out in his head how that had sounded. That was not how he had meant it to sound. “It’s not like what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s not like that. I love him. I’m not with him because I think I need to show him how grateful I am or something fucked up like that. Which, by the way, is exactly what Barry thinks.”

She frowned. “Did he tell you that?”

He was back to knotting and unknotting his hands. “The first night I was home,” he said. “Barry. . . sent me a text. He was pissed I went straight to Bruce’s house and spent the night there, instead of. . . I don’t know. He accused me of sleeping with Bruce because of the money.”

Dinah’s face was very good at showing nothing, but he caught the twitch there. “That’s a difficult place to recover a friendship from.”

“You’re telling me.”

“And it’s bound to make you feel even more protective of your relationship with Bruce.”

“I. . . yeah. I guess so. It’s not. . . something I expect a lot of people to understand.”

She leaned forward again. “We do,” she said. “The two of you have more support than you know.”

“You guys have been awesome,” he said. “That dinner at your place, when Barry showed up with what’s-her-face. . . apart from the shitshow, it was actually an amazing time. We—” he started to say, and then laughed.

“What,” she said, a small smile on her face.

“Nothing, just remembering how uptight Bruce was. We fooled around in your guest room and he was freaked right the fuck out you guys were gonna hear. It was hilarious.”

She laughed too, her warm easy laugh. “Oh I remember. You guys were not exactly quiet.”

He grinned. “Oh please for the love of God do not tell Bruce you heard anything, his balls will completely retract. It’s like the one and only time I have ever seen him not want sex, he was—” Hal laughed. “A literal quote, do you want to have to tell Ollie and Dinah why their sheets need changing tomorrow morning?”

She laughed louder, laughing right along with him. “It was unbelievable,” Hal said, shaking his head and still grinning. “I mean normally the guy does not have an off switch, but I sure found it that night. He took a little persuading to finally get freaky, I will say.”

“So what’s that like, being with someone whose sex drive is that high?”

“Pretty fucking awesome. Do you know what—” He stopped.

“Tell me.”

“No, I don’t wanna—it’s okay.”

“Hal. For fifty minutes, you can say anything. It goes nowhere.”

“I was just gonna—so there’s this thing he does.”

“What thing?”

“He has this idea in his head that I don’t like sex as much as he does. Or I don’t even know if it’s that. I think it’s more his weird thing where he’s convinced his sex drive makes him some kind of freak, I don’t know. He’s got some pretty grade-A internalized homophobia going on, but get in line for that one I guess. Thing is, sometimes when we’re in bed, and I know he’s good for another round, I know he holds back. He’ll ease off sometimes, if he thinks I’ve had enough. And the thing is. . . .”

She was silent, waiting. “Thing is, any idea what a fucking turn-on that is? He will just. . . hold himself there. Like. . . I can feel in his whole body that he wants more, and he’s stopping, he’s just. . . holding himself there. Because what I want – or what he thinks I want – is the most important fucking thing in the world to him, and do you have any fucking idea what that feels like, for the person you love like that to love you back so fucking hard that—” 

He broke off. He was breathing fast. He got up and walked to the window, just to get control of himself. There was construction going on, in the parking lot across the street. He watched the cement mixer for a while, the people shouting back and forth. Aimless cigarettes flicked to the pavement, by the guys on break. 

“Do you have any idea what it feels like,” he finally said. 

“Yes,” she said, and he turned back to her. 

“Yeah,” he said, remembering it was Dinah he was talking to. “I guess you do at that, don’t you?”

“I want you to think about something,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I want you just to think about this. Is it not possible that a love as strong as what you’re describing can withstand the truth?”

He turned back to the parking lot and the construction, watching them some more. “You want me to say. . . what,” he said. 

“I don’t want you to say anything. You’ll know the words. I’m just saying, the Everything Is All Right show can end in front of him too. He can take it. You know how strong he is. And deep inside you know how strong what the two of you have is.”

He remembered the conversation – okay, the fight – they had had three days ago, the one that had landed him here. _You don’t want to talk to me, fine_ , Bruce had said. _Then will you at least talk to Dinah?_

 _I’m fine_ , he had shouted.

_That’s right, how could I be forgetting? Of course you’re fine, Hal Jordan is always fine._

_I’m sorry, are you seriously lecturing someone else about emotional repression? Is that a thing that is happening right now, because excuse me while I call up the Gotham Gazette for this exclusive you giant fucking hypocrite._

_You’re lashing out like a tantruming second-grader, pointing the finger at everyone and everything else because you’re refusing to face—_

_Did you just call me a child?_ he had yelled, and faster than thought, the green light had shot across the room, and every piece of glass in the room had shattered, every plate in the cupboards, and every piece of crockery in the cabinets. They had been standing in the butler’s pantry at the Manor, and that fireball of green light had missed Bruce’s head by inches. By literal fucking inches. Hal had staggered back, stunned. That had never happened to him, losing control like that

 _Jesus Christ_ , he had panted. _Oh Jesus. Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t—I’m so fucking sorry—_

Bruce’s hands had been on him, soothing him, holding him while he shook. They had said nothing. There was nothing to say. That afternoon Hal had made the call, had made the appointment with Dinah. He spent the afternoon cleaning up the mess, sweeping all those shattered pieces into the bin. That evening he had gone to apologize to Alfred. There had been only kindness in the older man’s eyes. 

“Okay,” Hal said hoarsely, staring out the window. “Yeah.”

“And I also have a scrip for you.”

“What is it?”

“A garden variety anti-depressant. I think it would be a good idea for a while.”

“Right,” he said. “About that. Is it going to. . . I mean, the thing is, are any of the side effects. . . ah, sexual in nature?”

“Sometimes they can be. It differs for every person. You might have no difficulty, or you might have some.”

He winced. “Yeah, that’s. . . not gonna work.”

“Hal. Sex is not part of the Everything Is All Right show. Trust your partner.”

“How often do you and Ollie have sex?”

“A lot.”

“Ballpark me.”

“Twice a day, give or take. Look, I know what it’s like to be in a relationship where sex is important, okay? But your mental health is important too.”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking about Alfred’s shattered pantry, and how close he had come to hurting someone. Not someone. Bruce. “Okay. I’ll. . . I’ll try.”

So that night he had taken his first Zoloft. He stood in the bathroom and watched himself in the mirror. Maybe he was waiting to see if he felt any better. He didn’t. He called up Dinah.

“Hey,” she said. 

“Hey. Ah. . . this is Hal. Hal the patient, not Hal the friend. I mean, obviously Hal your friend, I just meant in this particular instance – look, is this not cool, or can I do this?”

“You can do this. What’s up?”

“Are you sure I don’t just have PTSD?”

“Of course you have PTSD.”

“Oh. I do?”

“You do.”

“So. . . shouldn’t I take meds for that, instead of this other stuff?”

“You need a mood stabilizer first, and then we can layer medication from there. But yes, that’s our next step. Probably klonopin.”

“Okay. Well, you didn’t mention that today.”

“Because when I waved a simple Zoloft scrip, you practically ran for the parking lot. Baby steps.”

He laughed. “Yeah, probably a good call there. Okay. Thanks. Sorry for. . . you know.”

“Hal. You’ve got this. Okay?”

“Okay. Hey, one more quick question, is everyone in the League medicated to the fucking gills?”

“No comment.”

“I bet. Okay, go to bed, I know you’ve got things to do if you’re gonna make that schedule,” he said with a grin, and he heard her short laugh. 

“Same to you. Check in later this week?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.” He hung up and went back to staring in the mirror. He must have lost track of time. The next thing he knew Bruce was standing in the bathroom doorway, and then his arms were looped around Hal from behind. He rested his head on Hal’s shoulder. They watched themselves in the mirror. 

“Come to bed,” Bruce whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

He called from the car, like he said he would.

“Hey I know what I forgot to ask you about,” he said.

“Hm,” said Bruce, that abstracted tone to his voice.

“Are you in the Cave?”

“Mm hm.”

“Anyone around?”

“Damian is pole vaulting on stalagmites.”

“’Kay, cool. Hey, he won a hand off me yesterday, tell him his prize is in the fridge, I forgot to let him know.”

“What is his prize?”

“I left him a tangerine kiwi Red Bull. I always let him have one, when he takes a hand.”

“Because that’s exactly what he needs. How’s the drive?”

“Uneventful. The usual exciting mix of country music and call-in shows on the radio. But I’m not worried, I’ve got all that Wagner you downloaded for me. Hey, so what I wanted to ask you was about this guard up at Watson.”

There was silence on the other end. 

“You there?”

“Yes.”

He couldn’t tell if Bruce was quiet because he was talking about Watson, or because he was concentrating on some technical problem. “So when I was at Watson, there was this one young guy, the kid guard I might have mentioned to you. Decent guy, young as fuck, I think he took the job straight out of high school because that area is not what you would call full of economic opportunity, and the prison is pretty much it, in terms of a fulfilling career.”

“I remember.”

“Anyway, with any luck and barring future incarcerations, this is likely going to be my last trip up there for some time. And I was thinking, a kid like that has no business in a prison. Can I send him your direction?”

A whuff of noise on the other end – an exhale, or a laugh, he couldn’t tell. “This is like sending Damian to visit the animal shelter. Exactly how many strays are you planning on bringing home?”

“Honestly? As many as will fit in my shitty car.”

An actual laugh on the other end this time. “Figures,” Bruce said. “All right, I need to concentrate on this.”

“Cool. Hey Bruce.”

“Hmm?”

“You thought I was going to ask about T-Bone, didn’t you.”

Silence again. Hal shook his head. “Like I didn’t already know what you did there,” he said. “Yes, what a fucking mystery that was. Like I care, come on. Okay, go do a job, babe. Hey did you mean that literally, about him pole vaulting on the stalagmites?”

“Did you mean that literally, that you’ve been feeding him Red Bull?”

“Hey, it has nutrients! Red Bull has made me the man I am today.”

“I’m going to let that stand without comment. Get off the line, I need to work.”

“Ugh, I’m sick of how mushy you get on the phone, all this clinginess is suffocating me.”

“Idiot.”

“Cock-knob.”

Bruce barked a laugh at that – it was Jason’s current favorite insult, gleaned from the late-night British detective shows Hal happened to know he was addicted to. Hal tossed his phone aside and relaxed into the drive, which was always a beautiful one. He considered stopping at the little stream he and Bruce had stopped at, when Bruce had picked him up on his release day at Watson. Maybe he would take Sol there. No, maybe he wouldn’t. He didn’t want that place to be for anyone else. But maybe that was selfish. Maybe he could say, _Bruce took me here when I first got out of Watson_. It would be a way of talking about Bruce, of making sure Sol knew that he didn’t think he was a bigot. Or it could be he was really overthinking this.

He got lucky when he got to Watson – the kid guard was working the Saturday shift, not least because he was low man on the totem pole and he always got the weekend shifts. He had the same polite smile for Hal, when he signed in on the visitors log.

“Afternoon, Mr. Jordan,” he said.

“Afternoon, kid.”

“You here to pick up Mr. Easley?”

“I am indeed.”

“You know he’s gonna be released out the side entrance, right? Not through the visitors entrance.”

“Yeah, I know. Actually, I’m here to talk to you a sec, before I pick up Sol. You got a minute?”

“Oh. Ah, I don’t—sure, I guess.”

“Good deal. Come over here, pretend like you’re showing me something about the vending machines, okay?”

“Um, I don’t—”

“Listen,” Hal said low. He leaned against the vending machine. “You’re a good kid. You were decent to me, you’ve been decent to Sol. I know you think this is a good job, maybe it’s more money than you’ve ever made. But it’s not a good job. This is not the way to make a good living. It’s not gonna be good for you, you listening to me?”

The kid guard was blushing furiously. “Mr. Jordan, I’m—”

“Just listen a sec. I’ve got a card for you here. If you’re interested in security, this is the number to call. This is an actual career path, and this is serious money. Think about it. Okay?” And he handed him the Wayne Tech Security card, with the number highlighted on the bottom for him to call. The kid guard stared at it. 

“Wayne Tech. That’s— _the_ Wayne Tech?”

“Yeah, kid, the Wayne Tech.”

“That’s in Gotham,” he said. 

“Yes it is.”

“Thing is, I—my girlfriend and I, we’re gonna get married next month, and she’s got a good job here, she’s in line for assistant manager at CVS. We’ve got. . . we live here, is the thing, sir.”

“Well, I guarantee you that if you call this number, there would be a job for her too. But it’s up to you.”

The kid guard looked even more confused. “That’s—I don’t know what to—can I think about this, or do I—”

“Take all the time you want, there’s no expiration date. I’m just making the offer. I’m gonna go pick up Sol now.”

“Right, yeah, it’s just—do you. . .work for Wayne Tech?”

Hal hesitated. “I consult for them,” he said, which was not strictly untrue. He had in fact been doing some work for Wayne Tech, but not anything that paid him – or rather, not anything he would let Bruce pay him for. He had been sitting in the little sunroom off the library at the Manor one afternoon a few weeks ago, just reading a book (because that was the sort of thing he did now, sit in sun-filled rooms and read books and look up and discover it was four in the afternoon) when Bruce had come in and tossed a stack of blueprints on the inlaid table in front of him. 

“What’s this?” Hal had said.

“You tell me. I have a better than average idea what I’m looking at, but these are Department of Defense specs, and it will take me all afternoon to work my way through them. I figure it will take you twenty minutes.”

“Ten,” Hal said, picking up the top one. “This looks like an F-22, what do you need to know? Except it’s got—hang on,” he said, sitting up straighter and squinting at it. “Oh ho, someone’s been getting funky with the AESA radar. That’s new. Is this actively in production right now? Are you guys bidding on this?”

“Considering it. It would help to have a test pilot tell me the truth about it.”

Hal peered at him over the blueprint. “Is this another blatant attempt to give me a pity job?”

“This is a blatant attempt to kick the CEO of Magna Industries in his shriveled balls. Will you help me or not? I’ll pay you in waffles if you like, I really don’t care.”

“Well you know what gift is always the right size.”

Bruce landed the second stack on top of the first one, conservatively four inches thick. “How many blowjobs would this be?”

“Your jaw’s gonna get a work-out. When do you need this by?”

Bruce winced. “If you can give me a workable summary of these by tonight, I can go into that meeting tomorrow morning and know what the hell I’m talking about. I’m a decent engineer, and I’m not bad at reading these, but there are details that I’m missing, and those details could cost me money.”

“Get me a pad and pencil, point-five lead. And a Red Bull. Coconut Berry.”

“Now you’re pushing it.”

“Fine, pineapple, I’m not fussy,” he said, and pulled the table closer, starting in on the first stack. It had taken him until about midnight to work through the entire stack, and when he had finished, it had taken him another hour to walk Bruce through all of them. Bruce asked excellent questions and listened closely, taking copious notes. Some parts he had Hal explain again.

“For an aeronautical engineering consult of this level, and for this amount of work, I would expect to pay between thirty and forty thousand,” Bruce said, as he rolled the blueprints back up. “I would be prepared to pay fifty, if I had to. These are billion dollar deals, and that’s nothing. That’s pennies. You deserve to be paid for this.”

“Yeah,” Hal said. “I get that. But you get why I’m not taking a job from you, yes?”

“Reluctantly.”

“So consider this my contribution to the waffles fund. I need you to win these billion dollar deals if you expect to keep me in Alfred’s cooking.”

Bruce was silent. “Besides, you can’t have a felon on your payroll,” Hal added.

“I have plenty of felons on my payroll.”

“Oh yeah? Any of them doing consulting work on billion-dollar Defense Department contracts?”

Bruce was silent again. Hal put a hand on his chest, stroked his shirt. “You can’t fix everything, babe,” he said quietly. “You can’t save the world. Next thing you know you’ll be stalking the streets of Gotham trying to round up all the criminals. Probably dressed up like something weird, too.”

“Better quit while I’m ahead then,” Bruce whispered back, and Hal leaned in to kiss him. They didn’t end up going to bed that night, actually. Hal’s kiss became more intentional, and they ended up fucking right there on the wide down sofa under the windows. 

And for the first time, when he said fucking, he meant that literally. Funny how they had been together for almost six months, and how to calculate that anyway – calculate it from their first abortive date, followed by ten months in prison? Or calculate it from when he got out of prison, and they had actually been together? He went back and forth on that one. But it was almost six months of the latter, and well over a year of the former, before they had done anything like literal fucking. Because Bruce was one hundred percent clearly not going to go there unless Hal explicitly said he wanted to, and Hal was pretty sure he did not want to, and Bruce was seemingly fine with that. They had a lot – like, a _lot_ a lot – of sex, but not that. Until that night, for whatever reason. 

“Can I fuck you?” Hal whispered, as they were making out on the sofa, grinding fast, and Bruce groaned and said “God yes,” and Hal shifted them so he was on top. Then he sat up and got off the sofa. 

“What are you doing?” Bruce said, like he was not really aware what was happening, which was entirely possible since about ninety percent of his blood volume was in his cock right now, which was hard enough to drive nails. For a second Hal almost succumbed to the temptation to sink to his knees and swallow it, to feel Bruce’s flood of cum in the back of his throat. But eyes on the prize here. 

“Lube,” Hal whispered. “Be right back.”

“Wait—you mean here? On a sofa? The bed upstairs is—”

“Here,” Hal said, quickly zipping up his jeans. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

So he trotted upstairs and rooted around in the bottom drawer of Bruce’s bedside table – and wasn’t that a magical mystery tour, he was going to have to spend more time in that drawer when his own cock wasn’t aching, and his fingers weren’t clumsy with need. He returned with lube, moving quickly and silently through the dark house. No sign of anyone else moving around, which considering this was a house of Bats was always a possibility, even at two in the morning.

“Thought you might at least get undressed,” Hal said, closing the door of the little room behind him. Bruce was where he had left him, his clothes disheveled from their extended make-out session, one leg canted, the other languidly draped off the sofa. He was scrolling through his phone.

“You don’t just want to move upstairs?”

“Not really. Clothes off, come on.”

Bruce sat up and began peeling off his clothes. Hal sat at the end of the sofa and watched, because goddamn but it was always a sight to see, that body emerging from under clothes. That fucking magnificent cock. It made Hal’s mouth water. He leaned in to kiss Bruce, and Bruce’s fingers started working on his shirt and pants too. “Fucking beautiful,” Bruce murmured against Hal’s face, as his hands touched and rubbed and caressed. 

Their fucking was as hungry as their sex always was. Bruce was impatient, and neither of them really wanted to take it slow, so Hal got slicked up and figured it would work out okay. Which maybe he should not have done, judging by the shudder and gasp of Bruce’s body as he started to move inside him. Bruce was face down on the sofa, and Hal nuzzled at his ear.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Oh fucking God you feel so good.” But he went slow then, backing it off a bit. Bruce’s fingers reached around and dug into his ass, moving him in deeper. Bruce groaned again.

“Yeah? This okay?”

Another groan was his only answer. Hal lifted some weight off him so Bruce’s cock had some room underneath them. Bruce was humping the sofa, his fingers clawing at the cushions, so maybe it felt as good to him as it did to Hal. “I—God—wait,” Bruce gasped, and he groped blindly for a piece of their clothes to wedge underneath him, and Hal laughed, because Bruce was only now realizing that this was going to end with a very awkward conversation with Alfred about the giant cum-stain on the damask, and he knew for a fact Bruce would prefer to firebomb the room, and maybe his house.

“Bruce,” he moaned, pushing harder and faster and deeper inside, his hands and mouth and tongue and body enveloped in Bruce. “Oh God, oh fuck—”

He tried to get a hand underneath them to give Bruce something to fuck, but Bruce seemed to be doing okay on his own there, and in fact the sofa was none too wide (Bruce had maybe been right about that one) so maneuvering was not the easiest. Bruce gave another loud groan, and Hal could feel the beginnings of Bruce’s body tightening around his cock, and he lost it then – not like a sharp explosion of orgasm, but a long slow release that wrung all the air out of him, as he drained his balls in Bruce’s body. It whited out his vision, and his hips kept fucking Bruce even though his body was done. He couldn’t believe he had ever thought Bruce was quiet in bed, because he was groaning on every breath now, as he came underneath them in thick spasms. 

“Goddamn baby,” Hal moaned, collapsing onto Bruce’s broad beautiful back, curling around him. Which of course had the effect of pushing Bruce right down into the wet spot, but Bruce’s neurons did not appear to be firing yet, and he was limp and unresisting. The arm that was clutching at Hal’s backside was still dug in. Maybe Alfred would just find them like this in the morning, because neither of them appeared able to move. 

“Did we just destroy this sofa,” Hal whispered.

“I have good news and bad news,” came the muffled response, and Hal could not stop laughing. He slid slowly out, but Bruce flinched a little at that. The extent of the mess they had made was impressive. Bruce tossed what appeared to be Hal’s shirt overboard, and rolled over.

“Told you we should have gone upstairs,” Bruce murmured. They turned toward each other and curled up there, arms around each other, neither one talking for a while. Bruce began absently stroking his hair, nuzzling at his head. It was funny – Hal had thought of fucking as this sort of Rubicon, but it was just like all their other fucking, really. Hot and intimate and mind-blowing. It was really just one more thing to do together in bed, not this giant thing he had made it out to be. He wondered if Bruce had already known that.

They shifted, and Bruce’s head ended up pillowed on his chest, and Hal stroked his back as he fell asleep. From where they lay under the windows he could see the stars, a thick blanket of them on this far side of the bay.

He could fly the Javelin any day he wanted to. He could fly around and between all of those stars – wouldn’t need the Javelin to do it, either. Compared to that kind of alien tech, even the sophistication of the newest stealth fighter on Earth looked like a clumsy toy. So why did his body ache for it? Why was it pulling G’s in the canyons of New Mexico that he couldn’t get out of his blood, the roar in his ears, the shudder beneath his fingertips? Nothing else in the world felt like that, and if you’d tasted it once, you would always want it. 

He glanced down and saw Bruce’s eyes awake and on his. Sometimes it felt like Bruce could read the things he was thinking. “You’re supposed to be asleep,” Hal said. “You’re the one with the early meeting.”

Bruce’s hand came up and caressed his jaw. Hal kissed his hand. “I love you,” Bruce said. “In case it was something you were wondering about.”

“I wasn’t.”

They drifted some more, or maybe Bruce did. Bruce had told him he wasn’t good with the words, and Hal had never really expected the words. But he meant it when he said it wasn’t something he had been wondering about. He knew what Bruce felt, what they felt for each other. The why of it was less obvious. And speaking of obvious, it was increasingly obvious he wasn’t going to sleep tonight. Some nights he didn’t, but Dinah was right, it wasn’t really a problem. It was just the way things were. “Can I ask a question though,” Hal said after a while, and Bruce grunted. 

“Any way you could tell me why? Because. . . I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. Like. . . why would you, is the thing. It doesn’t exactly. . . make sense.”

“No,” Bruce said. “It doesn’t.” The low rumble of his voice felt good on Hal’s chest. “I tried not to. Told myself it was just physical attraction. Did that for a long time.” His voice sounded sleepy.

“That’s some new information there,” Hal whispered.

“Is it?”

Bruce shifted, and Hal winced. Sometimes it was like sleeping under a combine thresher, and he knew he was a hypocrite, he himself was pretty solidly built too, but sometimes Bruce was another order of thing. Bruce edged himself against the side of the sofa, propped on an elbow so he could look at Hal. “You do something I don’t know how to do,” he said, and the sleepiness was gone from his voice. “You wade through shit – through the worst this world has to offer, really – and it doesn’t touch you. You are filled with this. . .” And he lifted his hand, as though to touch Hal, but skimmed his hand along just above his skin, like there was an aura he was stroking. 

“Light, is the only way I know how to describe it. Warmth. It’s in the way you smile, and especially the way you smile just before that smart mouth is about to say something it shouldn’t. You are anarchy personified. You have no room for bullshit or lies, no patience with authority, no reverence or respect or decency or any of the things that should make a good person, and yet somehow you’re the best man I know. When you laugh it makes my joints ache, it’s so beautiful. You are. . .” and here the hand descended, touched his skin, but rested there, like it was warming itself. “You are everything I never expected. The most unlike me of anyone I have ever met, and yet somehow the most like. Loving you is not a decision, any more than breathing is a decision. It is not the same muscle group as ordinary love, is the only thing I know to tell you. It is involuntary, and I don’t have any of the answers you are looking for.”

“That was. . . pretty good,” Hal said, his mouth gone dry. “Damn. I was just gonna say something about your ass, if you had asked me, but now I gotta rearrange.”

Bruce laughed and bent to his mouth, and they kissed softly, lazily. Hal slept after that, and woke to sunlight dappling the quilt that had been draped over him. Hal curled up in it and rolled the other direction, slipping back into deep morning sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

He waited in the parking lot by the side entrance for Sol, like Bruce had for him. Sol’s grin at seeing him was like sun after a cloudy day, and Hal threw his arms around him, and they both laughed and slapped each other’s backs and laughed some more. 

“This cannot possibly be your car,” Sol said.

“Man, why does everyone shit on my car? You sound just like Bruce. Get your ungrateful ass in here, this car is about to take you to the biggest breakfast of your life.” He took him to Flo’s, the truck stop down the road, where Bruce had taken him, and Hal had the joy of watching Sol shovel all the food on the left side of the menu in his face, and look up hungry for more. Sol was quiet, which Hal understood. It was hard to navigate, those first few hours. Sensory overload. And Sol had been locked up longer than he had. 

“You know what’s funny,” Sol said, licking his fingers.

“What’s that.”

“You ain’t never asked me what I did. You ever think about that? Not that anybody talks about that shit, but I always thought you would ask and you never did. That because you didn’t want anyone to ask you the same question?”

“Yep,” Hal said.

“Why not?”

“Because I would have had to tell you I didn’t do it, and it would have sounded like I was lying or making excuses, and I never wanted to be that guy. The sad ones in the yard who would try to buttonhole you and convince you they were innocent, that sort of shit.”

“Hm.” Sol wiped his fingers and studied him. “Fly, you is some kind of puzzle. For the record, I absolutely did stab my cousin.”

“The one who made you eat cat food?”

“Nah, he all right, he turned out okay.”

“I thought you hated him.”

“Well sure I hate him, but he okay. I stabbed another cousin, the one who was trying to rape my other cousin’s little girl.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Oh yeah, he dead. Mainly because I got lucky. I don’t actually know shit about stabbing people, but he jerked around at just the wrong time, and I got him in the neck. Anyway, couldn’t afford a real lawyer, and at my trial they kept asking me was I in a gang. No lie, the prosecutor said when I said I wasn’t in no gang, he leaned in and said, a big boy like you? Like yeah, believe you me, the fat ones, they’re the ones the gangs are lining up for, they all hide behind us like shields you crazy-ass racist motherfucker. Which I might have said on the stand. I think my lawyer was texting or something. Who knows.”

“You didn’t have to tell me,” Hal said.

“You said I was staying at your place. Thought you should know who was bunking with you. In case they gonna charge you more on your lease for a murderer.”

“No, it’s the same rate. They don’t care as long as they can bleed you. Capitalism, man. ”

“All power to all the people.”

“Amen. So, ah, by the way, might have forgotten to mention I am dating a billionaire.”

“This your not-cousin?”

“Ah, yeah. That’s the one. Just thought I’d get that on the table. And also I was thinking. . . maybe the three of us could have dinner sometime soon.”

Sol cocked a curious brow at him before he started in on the waffle fries. He drizzled them with syrup first. “You know they’re called waffle fries,” Hal pointed out, “because of the shape, not because they’re actually made of waffles.”

“Don’t limit me. So why we having dinner? Other than you want my blessing. Which I am still thinking about, but the billionaire thing I gotta work through.”

“Because. . . because you’re my friend, and I want you to meet him. You’re the first. . . non-work friend I’ve had, in a while.”

“You mean, cause I ain’t a pilot? Or does ‘non-work’ mean black? Hang on,” Sol said, munching a meditative waffle fry. “This Bruce you’re dating. Bruce as in. . . Bruce Wayne? That kind of billionaire?”

“Yeah. Bruce as in Bruce Wayne.”

Sol set the waffle fry down and wiped his hands. “Well goddamn Fly,” he said, and Hal looked down. He had a flash of reading Barry’s text, of the judgment in Barry’s voice, of the kind of thing everyone probably thought. He looked up and it was just Sol’s face.

“He good enough for you?”

“Yeah,” Hal said. “He is.”

“Then that’s good enough for me. I ain’t hold the billionaire thing against him.”

“He wants to make you a job offer,” Hal said, figuring he would strike while the iron was hot, and Sol made a face. 

“Come on man, ain’t nobody hiring me. I don’t need nobody’s pity.”

Hal leaned forward. “I’m alive right now because of you, you think I don’t know that?” His voice was low and intent. “There is fuck-all I can do that repays that, and you and I both know it. If I can get you a fucking job you better be damn sure I’m gonna do it. Take it or leave it, I don’t care. But it’s a good job.”

“You work for him too?”

Hal studied the salt shaker. “No,” he said.

“You flying planes again?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Hal scrubbed at his hair. “Because I’m a test pilot, and companies that manufacture and test fighter jets require all their pilots to be heavily insured, for obvious reasons. And no one is going to insure a convicted felon. No one can hire me.”

“Shit,” Sol said. 

“Yep.” Hal sat idly stirring his milkshake. He hadn’t had much to eat. The first few weeks out of Watson he had not been able to eat enough, had not been able to shovel in enough food. But after that his appetite had gone to shit, and the weight had not really come back. Some of it had. But not all. His clothes still sat too loose.

He drove Sol back to his apartment when they were finished with breakfast – or when Flo had run out of food to feed them – and got him settled there. It was a two-bedroom apartment, though Hal had never done anything with the extra bedroom other than store old video-game equipment in it. But he had gotten it fixed up now, and there was a bed and a futon and it looked more or less like a place a human being would want to live. Sol had fallen on the bed and gone right to sleep. Hal remembered doing pretty much the same thing, when he had left Watson too. But he had been sleep-deprived for ten months. Sol had been there ten years.

He went out on the balcony to talk to Bruce so he wouldn’t wake Sol. 

“I’m gonna stay here tonight,” Hal said. “In case he needs anything. Just to be here, I guess. You okay?” In the background he could hear a loud sound, like metal scraping on metal. Then another sound, like a body hitting concrete.

“Fine,” Bruce said tightly. 

“I feel like I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

“Oh no, why would you say that.”

“Can I come play too?”

“Unnecessary,” Bruce said, and then there was a louder sound, and a scream. Not a very distant one, either.

“Bruce?”

“Working here.”

“’Kay. You need the Green Lantern to come save your ass, you let me know.”

A growl – a literal and actual growl, thank you – and Bruce had switched off the comm line. Hal laughed. “Crazy ass Bat,” he said, to no one in particular. He looked up from his phone to see Sol standing in the doorway. “My friend,” Hal said. “He has bats. He’s trying to figure out how to get rid of them. One of them attacked him.”

Sol squinted at him. “You got yourself some crazy friends.”

“You’re not wrong about that. I’m gonna go out for a little bit, you okay here?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m probably just gonna go back to bed and sleep for another couple days.”

“Cool. I’ll be back later on. Just some shit I gotta take care of.”

“Green Lantern shit?”

Hal froze. It was dark on the balcony, and he knew Sol couldn’t see his face, which he was grateful for. He searched for words and found none. The laughing denial, that would have been a good place to start. Something, anything other than freezing like a deer in headlights. Sol was just studying him.

Still Hal said nothing. It wasn’t just his own identity. It was everyone he knew. It was Bruce. If you knew he was the Lantern, then knowing Bruce’s identity was not that hard a get. And Sol had clearly heard who he was talking to on the phone. He had heard him say — 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fucking shit. “This conversation cannot happen,” Hal said. “For your own protection. For mine. For the protection of everyone I care about. I need this conversation never to have happened, do you understand me.”

Sol nodded. “Lives depend on this, Sol,” he said. 

“You think I ain’t got your back?”

Hal nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I just—fuck.” He put his head in his hands. Sol stepped out onto the balcony, put a steady hand on his shoulder.

“Fly,” he said. “You got nothing to worry about. I have literally no friends, right? I’m a convicted felon on parole, who the fuck am I gonna tell about anything? Or who even gonna believe me? You go do your job, all right? I’m gonna stay here and play all your new video games.”

“Yeah. Okay. I—thank you.”

Sol pulled him in for a hug, because Sol was a hugger. There were worse things to be in life. “Hey, there’s something I forgot to tell you,” Sol said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. When you was in solitary. I did try, man. I tried everything I knew. I got to Claymore. I explained to him what had happened, I tried so hard man. I just didn’t want you to think I let them throw you in there and I didn’t do shit.”

“Fuck, Sol, tell me—that was so fucking stupid. There was nothing you could have done, you just—fuck.” Hal bent his head to Sol’s broad shoulder. 

“I knew they was gonna kill you.”

“I’m hard to kill.”

“Nah.” Sol raised his head, held Hal by the shoulder to look at him. “Nah man, you break like everybody else. So you take care of yourself, all right?”

Hal nodded. He waited for Sol to go back inside and flick on the TV, and then he quietly lifted off from the balcony in a quick straight green shot into the sky. His comm could get a lock on Bruce’s location, and no matter what Bruce thought about it, having a little back-up was never a bad idea. Actually, he was pretty sure he knew what Bruce thought about it, but that was just too goddamn bad.

* * *

“So how has it been with the Zoloft?”

“Ah. . . yeah, I think. . . that is not gonna work out.”

Dinah looked up from her notes. “Why’s that?”

“It, ah. . . I can’t really deal with. . . the side effects.”

“Which ones?”

Hal chewed at his lip. “The sex ones.”

“Oh.” She closed her note pad. “Tell me.”

“Tell you?”

“Hal. I can’t help you figure out the right medication if I don’t have all the information. I’m not trying to pry into your personal life, I’m trying to be the best clinician I can be. Because you need a good one.”

“On account of being so crazy.”

“On account of dealing with a massive amount of untreated PTSD, which does not make you crazy, it makes you someone swimming upstream with rocks tied to his back. I’m just trying to take off one or two of those rocks. Can you tell me what the Zoloft is doing that you need it not to do?”

“I just—” He scrubbed at his forehead. “I can’t come. Okay? It’s not. . . being, ah, ready for action is not a problem, but then when I try to. . . ah, get there, I can’t. Quite. It is really. . . frustrating. For me, and for. . . anyone in bed with me. And look, all right, things have started to get really. . . good for me, for our—for our situation, sexually speaking, and this is just a spectacularly bad time for me to not be, ah, working correctly, if you understand what I’m getting at.”

Dinah was tapping her pen against her notebook. “Can you tell me what’s been going so well recently?”

He hesitated. “This is one of those times when not knowing you at all might really help.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I know how much this sucks, and I wish I could do better. I wish you had someone else available to you, and I wish protecting your identity did not make it necessary that it’s me you have to sit in a room with.”

She sounded so sincere about it that he felt kind of bad. “I didn’t mean I wanted someone else, you’re really good at this. Annoying as fuck, but that’s probably the job description. I just meant, maybe not the easiest person for me to talk sex stuff with, considering. And then—” He broke off. 

“And then?”

He was back to chewing his lip. “There’s this part of me that says the sex stuff would be easier to talk about if I were in a relationship with a woman.”

She was quiet. “Here is where you lecture me on internalized homophobia,” Hal said. 

“The world has very specific lessons to teach us about sex,” Dinah said. “Those lessons have very specific consequences. You paid attention to those lessons. One person’s internalized homophobia is another person’s way to survive. I don’t sit here lecturing people on their survival techniques.”

“There’s a part of me that says there’s a limit to what you might want to know.”

“You know I’m not straight, right?”

“Ollie is.”

“You can’t possibly think there is anything said in this room that Ollie hears, ever.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. I just – look, when I said things were beginning to get good between the two of us, I mean that we are. . . that I am more comfortable with some stuff than I was a while ago. With fucking, specifically. Not that before we weren’t—okay, what I mean is—”

“I get it, I promise. We can switch to something else if you want. Zoloft can have that orgasm-dampening effect, and the last thing I want is to throw a wrench into your sex life, especially when that is so important for you right now.”

“It’s not. . . I don’t mean it’s the only thing that’s important. I mean, what, are you concerned that poor Hal is gonna off himself because fucking is about the only thing he has going for him these days?” 

The room was silent. “Okay, now, that makes it sound like that’s what I think,” he said. “Dammit, how do you do that?”

“I promise you I am just sitting here listening.”

“It’s devil magic, is what it is.”

“That’s probably what my grandmother would have said, yes. Look, Hal, you don’t want to talk about sex with me, that is fine, I am not going to push you to reveal more than you’re comfortable with. But if you’re not talking about it because you think I might flinch at it, or find it revolting—you want to know the truth about the time you spent the night at our place? Honesty for honesty? Then yes, we did hear you. And yes, it was hot. And we fucked too, listening to you. Because it was beautiful. Because the two of you are beautiful. Because whatever lies the world has told you are just that—lies. And this is not the room in which lies will stand.”

“Oh,” he said. “Huh. Okay then.”

“Okay?”

“Kind of a perv, aren’t you?”

She chucked her pen at him with the unerring aim of the martial artist, and he blocked with a green shield. “So let’s do this,” she said. “Let’s move from the Zoloft to Effexor. It’s a bit of a steeper climb than Zoloft, which is why it’s not my go-to, but it’s a lot shorter on sexual side effects. And then let’s talk about adding in the klonopin.”

“Yeah,” he said uneasily. “About that. Are you sure that’s – I mean, I’m feeling better already. And I don’t really know – like, what does it actually do?”

“Short-circuits the neural pathways that re-insert your brain in trauma response, is what it does.”

“Okay, but I don’t actually have any trauma response going on.”

“I see. Have you broken anything that you didn’t mean to break, any time in the last eight weeks?”

“Did he – did he tell you that?”

She was making notes, and didn’t look up. “No Hal, no one told me that. You are carrying a large sign that says PTSD in foot-high neon glowing letters, and you are textbook right down the line. But listen. Taking klonopin now does not mean you will take it forever. We just need to find a way to short-circuit those pathways until your brain learns better coping mechanisms, all right?”

“Okay,” he said with relief. 

“Which is not to say that being on klonopin long-term is necessarily a bad thing.”

“Yeah, but. . . I don’t know. It probably means you’re pretty fucked in the head.”

She looked up at that, and just stared at him. He wondered if she was about to lay into him for being insensitive about mental illness, or something. “You might consider talking to people who do take klonopin long-term, and for very good reason, before you make a value judgment like that.”

“What, like in some sort of support group, or something like that? Yeah, I can see that working. Hi guys, my name is Hal Jordan, and I probably have PTSD because after wielding the greatest power in the known universe I was shoved in some godforsaken hole to get the shit beat out of me in prison, but hey I’m sure your lives are hard too.”

She was still just looking at him. “In retrospect that makes me sound like an asshole,” he said.

“No, just someone who might want to get his head out of his own ass occasionally.”

“Is head-in-ass an official diagnosis?”

She held up the pad she had been taking notes on. It had plenty of marginal doodles, and other scrawls he couldn’t decipher, but “H-I-A” was clear enough. It was written across the top as a header, and underlined three times. “Unbelievable,” he said. “I feel so disrespected.”

“For the record, I wasn’t talking about a support group.”

“Oh yeah? You know other people shoveling klonopin in their crazy-ass faces on the regular?”

She was back to the flat stare. “Oh,” he said. “You mean. . . that’s what you meant.”

“You should really think about having conversations with people you live with, sometime.”

“I am kind of an asshole.”

“Part of your charm.”

He wondered if Bruce would agree. He thought about what Bruce had said the other night, about the reasons he loved him. Sometimes he took bits of that out and sat with it, just holding it. He needed to come up with something good too. Why couldn’t he come up with anything? It was starting to make him look bad.

* * *

He did end up taking a job with Ferris, though. It was a pity job, there was no doubt about it, but a pity job was in the end better than no job at all, so he swallowed his pride down and called Carol back one day.

“So, ah, hey,” he said. “How. . . how have you been?”

“Is this you calling to apologize for telling me to go fuck myself with my pity job?”

“Um. . . yes, that is a pretty good summary of it right there. And the other part would be, is there any possibility that pity job is still available?”

There was a pause which he recognized as an exhale. She was sneaking cigarettes again, goddammit. He was gonna have to rip her a new one about that. “Well,” she said. “The line of ex-cons with the most advanced fighter pilot experience in the world is a pretty long one, I’m gonna have to get back to you.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Ahhhhh no, that is not actually what came out of your mouth, but probably as close as your narcissistic brain can get. When can you start?”

When he hung up he considered the possibility that he was, in fact, a narcissist. Bruce had called him that, way back when. Probably still would, if asked. He was going to have to ask Dinah about that one. When he remembered too, he was a little less than happy with the answer. 

“Probably not strictly speaking, no,” she said, looking thoughtful.

“Not strictly speaking??”

She laughed. “I’m just messing with you.”

“Is that—is that something therapists are supposed to do?”

“Oh relax. What I meant was, yes, you often display narcissistic behaviors in public settings.”

“Oh,” he said. That had not been at all what he had thought she might say. 

“Stop looking so offended. What I’m about to say is, you are in fact the opposite of a narcissist. Other people and their needs are very present to you, often more present than your own. But the self-assertion, the confidence, the apparent self-centeredness – these are all very finely-honed defense mechanisms. You grew up in a world that was not going to give you anything that you didn’t fight for. So now, you’re often like the starving child at the all-you-can-eat attention buffet. You know how to keep everyone’s eyes on you, and you know your own worth. You know your own attractiveness, you know your intelligence, you know your strength. You had to know those things, because no one else would, if you didn’t. Reminding people of those things is how you survived.”

“Oh,” he said again. “Okay. So I’m not a narcissist, I’m just a really shitty person.”

“Did you miss the part where I said you were attractive and smart and strong?”

“Maybe. Go back to that part.” 

She gave a short laugh. “And funny, I forgot to add.”

“If I need to update my Tinder profile I’ll come to you, no question. Or my Grindr. Which is, may I add, the hilarious difference between those two apps. Tinder wants to know your personality, Grindr just wants to know your location. Heterosexuality and homosexuality, in one easy stereotype.”

“Do you have either of those apps?”

“Ah, I used to have them both, actually. Does that seem like cheating?”

“To have them both? Or are you asking me if your bisexuality seems like a cheat?”

“Can’t we just have a conversation about phone apps?”

“Are we?”

“You’re doing the thing again, where you say things back at me in a question.”

“Am I?”

He tossed a pebble at her from her serenity fountain, and she caught it one-handed without looking up. “Hey, here’s a thought,” he said. “How many of your patients know you could actually kill them with one quad muscle, before they could even get up from the sofa?”

“Well I don’t lead with it, let’s put it that way. But my gender helps. It tends to make people feel safe. You’d be surprised how many people see women that way – as safe.”

“Statistically speaking, you kind of are. Not that women can’t be awful too. But when it comes to who’s got the more genocidal maniacs, I think my gender’s got a lock on it.”

“You confuse opportunity with capacity.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“Bruce is the first relationship you’ve been in, with a man.”

“Ahhh. . . correct.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“Because men are fine for a fuck, but don’t let them any closer. Women are better, because you get A-plus fucking, but there’s an actual person attached as well. Plus they smell better. I don’t know, I’m kind of making that all up. I’ve never really thought about it. The men I know that are more than just a cock and balls with two brain cells tied to the top are the men who became my friends, you know? So kind of a no-go zone.”

“Except for Bruce. What changed there?”

“I got curious. When I get curious about things, I tend to push the button. Kind of a character flaw. Oh no wait – you’re going to tell me that’s a survival technique, right?”

“You’ve got me in a box.”

It was his turn to laugh. “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I took a job at Ferris Air.”

“Really?” She sounded genuinely surprised.

“Yep. A desk job. But hey, a job’s a job, right?”

She was quiet again. He sighed. “I’m not doing the thing you think I’m doing.”

“What thing is that?”

“The Everything Is All Right thing. I’m not. But I’ve got a job, and much as the job sucks, I’m glad to have one. I can’t keep eating Bruce’s waffles.”

“Is that a—”

“No, it’s an actual thing, Alfred makes these amazing waffles with whipped cream what would make you weep where you sit. The waffles are probably the only thing holding my pants up, to be honest. And the job’s not that bad. At least I get to be around planes, you know? Even if I feel like. . .” He trailed off, and she looked up. 

“Like what?”

He fiddled with the pebbles in the fountain some more. The fountain was new. He wondered what had possessed her to buy it. Maybe it was a gift. He pictured Ollie coming home from Target, _look honey I got you something for your office_. Trying to be helpful. He wondered if Ollie knew he was coming here, to Dinah. Or maybe he had long practice in not asking questions. 

“Some after school special I watched when I was a kid. I forget the name. Maybe I never even saw the whole thing. It was about a jockey whose legs got mangled in some horse accident, and he took a job at the barn so he could at least be with the horse he couldn’t ever ride again.”

“How did it end?”

“Like I said, I never saw the whole thing. But sometimes that’s what I feel like, the broken old jockey out there stroking the ponies. Oh no wait I do remember. There’s a young kid on the farm who wants to be a jockey, and he ends up mentoring the kid, and the kid wins, and everybody cries. Fuck me.”

He leaned back in the sofa and ran his hands through his hair. He was a little shocked at how long it was. He had forgotten to get it trimmed. No real reason to; it wasn’t getting crammed in a flight helmet these days. Maybe that’s why Bruce was so into his hair these days, was because it was longer. Could not keep his hands off it, in bed. Would tangle his fingers in it, card his fingers through it while Hal was going to sleep. 

“It’s a good job,” Hal said at last. “I’m grateful.”

For the first time, Dinah laid her notepad aside. She crossed the room, came to sit beside him on the sofa. It wasn’t therapist and patient, it was Dinah and Hal. She just sat there with him, leaning on her elbow. 

“So I have a thing,” she said, watching him. “Every November, I turn off all social media.”

“Okay,” he said.

“It’s because I get so sick of the gratitude posts. I get so sick of the constant drumbeat of grateful, grateful, grateful. It’s become a hammer we use to beat people with. Grateful is not an actual emotion. It’s the byproduct of relationship with another person, not a general emotion we aim out at the universe, and it’s complicated at best. It always has an edge to it – if I’m grateful for something, is it because I thought I wasn’t worthy of that thing on my own, or good enough for it? What does it really mean, to say we’re grateful?”

“Bet you’re fun at Thanksgiving,” he said, but it was a half-hearted attempt at a joke, and she didn’t smile.

“Hal. You don’t have to be grateful for taking up space on this planet. You don’t have to be grateful for whatever shitty crumbs the universe is throwing you now. You don’t even have to be grateful that Bruce worked so hard to get you out of prison, because that was justice, and it was what you deserved, not something you need to be grateful for. And every voice that ever beat you down and told you that you needed to be _grateful_ for the air you draw in your lungs, for the food you eat, and for the love you receive – those voices are wrong. You exist. You deserve to exist. There is not a fucking thing you have that you need to feel grateful about.”

He wanted to make a joke about her swearing in this room for the first time, but he didn’t have the voice for it. Didn’t have the voice for anything. He wanted to be somewhere away from her eyes that saw right through him, that would not let go of him. 

She reached across and laid her hand on his, just lightly, squeezing it. And then she rose, and went to sit back at her desk. Hal stared at the fountain. _Serenity Fountain_ , said the little brass label. Something about it made him want to punch it across the room.


	4. Chapter 4

“So Hal tells me you’re an economics major,” Bruce said. 

“Oh he does huh,” Sol said. Bruce leaned across and refilled Sol’s wine glass. “Well I was actually a psych major first. I had two years of psych classes, and I kept getting into these arguments in class about how boycotts are psychologically unsustainable. So I give it up, went across the hall and signed up for economics. It had way more psychology in it anyway.”

“Well you’re not wrong there,” Bruce said. They were sitting outside, in the gazebo by the pool, and there were lights strung, and they were curled in comfortable chairs, and Hal was grateful that Bruce had gone to the trouble to create an intimate, comfortable environment instead of making them sit in that cavernous monstrosity of a dining room. That was why he hadn’t wanted to have dinner at the Manor, because he knew what Addams Family hellscapes formal dinner parties here could be. But even better than the setting, with twilight settling over the pool and the lights twinkling and Sol leaning back in his chair, was watching Bruce with Sol. It was easy to forget how charming he could be when he wanted to be, and he clearly wanted to be.

“You should ask him about his cousins,” Hal said, and Bruce looked puzzled, and Hal and Sol roared with laughter. 

“Inside joke,” Hal said.

“Yeah, my knife inside him,” Sol said, and Hal doubled over with laughter.

“No wait wait,” Hal said. “I’ve got another prison one.”

“Oh come at me man, you ain’t got a single one I ain’t heard already, in fact I wrote most of ‘em—”

“Okay okay, try this—how is Facebook like prison? Because you’ve got a profile, you write on walls—”

“And you get poked by guys you ain’t even know,” Sol finished, and they both collapsed in more laughter, to Bruce’s complete and obvious confusion. He settled back in his chair and drank more wine and watched the two of them, a small smile on his face.

“Okay, so one time,” Hal started, “Biggest fight I ever saw, I swear to you.”

“Oh you mean, about the TV?”

“Yeah, when Carlese wanted to switch to Breaking Bad, and these ginormous guys were ready to smash chairs over watching the History Channel? So no lie, Sol steps in and says, he says, ‘Nah man, the economics of meth dealership in Breaking Bad are all off, if you want believable supply curves you gotta watch The Wire,’ and Sol gets them all fucking hypnotized, watching him scrawl these charts on the whiteboard in the TV room, I mean he is holding a fucking economics seminar over there, and Carlese says—”

“Aw yeah, Carlese, that stupid little shit—”

“So Carlese says, if I had seen these charts I wouldn’t never have become a drug dealer, like Sol was giving him religion over there—”

Sol grinned. “Like he seen Jesus between the cost curve and production functions. That little shit followed me around for days after that. I had to give him books just to shut him up.”

“Whatever happened with that, did he read all those?”

“Nah man, he had his old lady send him loose leaf and he used to roll his own in the yard, he tore up my Stiglitz for rolling papers, that little fuckhead.”

“Stiglitz?” Bruce interjected. “What did you make of his Eurozone argument?”

“Nah see, it’s just that the euro as a concept is fucked, right? It is fatally and fundamentally flawed, because the Eurozone is an artificial creation that has no correspondence to actual lines of commerce, am I right?”

“You are,” Bruce said, refilling his own glass now. “I disagree with some of what Stiglitz says, but there’s no arguing with his writing. But I tend to look at things from the engineer’s point of view, not the economist’s. Sol, have you thought about a job in the financial sector?”

Sol’s eyebrows shot up. “If by that you mean, will I get to work the cash register at the Goodwill, then yeah, I’m thinking about finance.”

Bruce leaned forward. “I’d like to do a little better than that. I know Hal has mentioned to you that I’m interested in hiring you.”

“Yeah, well.” Sol’s eyes shifted a little, glanced at Hal. “I just—I don’t know if that’s gonna work out. I mean look, I don’t mean to be beholden to anyone here, I can make my own way. I’m not afraid of some hard work.”

“I know that,” Bruce said. “But I also know the kinds of jobs that are likely going to be available to you, straight out of prison. Whatever job you end up landing, it’s not likely to be a job that makes use of your considerable intellectual skills. I could use someone like you at an entry-level analyst position at Wayne Tech. Just give it some thought.” 

“An analyst position,” Sol said. “I don’t know what to say to that, man. I thought you meant pushing a broom somewhere.”

“It’s up to you. I’m just asking you to think about it.”

“All right,” Sol said, “but I—look, this ain’t nowhere Fly works, is it? Because I had ten solid months of that and I don’t know how much more I can take.”

“Oh you shut your mouth I was a dream celly and you know it. I even loaned you my Herodotus.”

“I know, and I ain’t give it back because Carlese stole it for more rolling papers.”

“I think that was my book,” Bruce said.

“Sorry,” Sol said. “Somewhere out there is some eighty-pound meth dealer trying to figure out how to pronounce Croesus, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Fucking nerds,” Hal sighed, as Bruce and Sol laughed.

* * *

“Oh fuuuuck,” Hal moaned. He dug his fingers into Bruce’s shoulders, arched his back, tried to writhe but couldn’t, because Bruce was pinning him. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuuuuuck.”

Bruce’s mouth was like a furnace, and he was swallowing Hal’s cock like he had been born to do it. The things he was doing with his tongue should not be possible. Hal wanted to weep with it. He found something for his heel to rest on and pressed up, up into that mouth that just enveloped him in more heat and wet. “Oh fuck I’m gonna come,” Hal gasped faintly, his voice hoarse from the long torture session. Some days Bruce seemed to crave this – driving him to the edge of insanity like this, just toying with him. Bruce moved a hand from his thigh and let him arch up even more. Hal just started fucking his mouth. Then that hand was cupping his balls, gently massaging them. Hal began a sort of high-pitched whine in the back of his throat.

“Father?”

He had always known Bruce’s reflexes were fast. He had fought beside him in the field long enough to know just how fast, but fast as Bruce could shoot grappling wire across a fifty-foot chasm, it was not apparently as fast as he could throw a duvet across his lover’s naked body and turn to address his twelve-year-old son.

“Yes?”

“Is the Green Lantern in here?”

“Green Lantern?”

“Yes.” Damian sounded impatient. Also, Hal was having a little difficulty breathing. “I’ve been looking for him. I thought I heard him in here.”

“He’s not. Damian, what have I said about knocking.”

“I did knock! You just didn’t answer.”

Completely possible, considering that Bruce’s head had been buried between Hal’s thighs, which had been clenched tight around him. Evidently Bruce had figured that one out too. “You should wait for an answer,” he said. “I was. . .sleeping.”

“Oh,” Damian said. He sounded puzzled. Was it possible this kid was executing an epic troll? Fist bump if so, but Hal had like thirty seconds of breathable air under this thing. “I thought I heard him swearing.”

“He’s in the cave.” For fuck’s sake, Bruce.

“The cave?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Are you all right, Father?”

“Yes. I’m fine. Now let me finish my nap.”

“You’re sweating. Are you ill? Do you need me to summon Pennyworth?”

“No,” Bruce said hastily. Hal tried to control his laughter. Then Bruce’s hand came to rest squarely on his face, and further breathing became impossible. “Run down to the cave, Damian. I’m going to go back to sleep.”

“All right,” Damian said skeptically. Then the determined trudge of his footsteps, and the click of the door, and Hal flung off the duvet – what the hell was in that thing, how had he never noticed it weighed a hundred and seventy pounds? Bruce had leaped up and locked the door, and how had locking it not been their first move this afternoon? 

“Oh my God, air,” Hal panted. “And oh my God, you are the worst liar in the history of the world, how is it I always forget this? Oh my God,” he said again, laughing. 

“Oh shut up,” Bruce said, crawling back on the bed with him. He sprawled on his back, running his hands through his hair. 

“Look at you, you are completely traumatized. Kids are capable of dealing with the realities of sex, you know.”

“Really. That was a conversation you wanted to have with your cock poking holes in the ceiling.”

Hal couldn’t stop laughing. Bruce landed a pillow on top of his face, and Hal pitched it back at him. He launched his body on top of Bruce. “Let’s see how you like being suffocated,” he said. He had meant to wrestle him into submission, but Bruce was not exactly resisting. Hal rocked back and forth on top of him. They were both still semi-hard, and kudos to Bruce’s libido for maintaining even a semblance of an erection during that conversation with Damian. He let their cocks nestle and nudge. He pinned Bruce’s wrists. 

“Yes,” Bruce said softly. 

“Hey baby,” Hal whispered.

“Mm.”

“I’ve never used the ring in bed. How do you feel about it?”

“God _please_ ,” Bruce moaned, and the naked need in his voice broke Hal wide open. He let two thin tendrils of green snake around Bruce’s wrists, pinning him.

“Tell me when to stop,” Hal whispered into his ear, kissing along his jaw, and the guttural groan of Bruce’s answer told him everything he needed to know. Bruce was back to full hard now – aching, dripping hard.

“You’re hungry,” Hal said, and licked his way up Bruce’s cock. 

“Christ,” Bruce hissed. Hal leaned over for the drawer of wonder and delight and got some lube. He slicked up that magnificent cock. And that was how he got fucked by Bruce the first time – Bruce pinned down and writhing, gasping his name, begging him, and every syllable just made Hal’s cock ache more. He rode Bruce’s cock gently, because he was not what you would call experienced at this, but riding him like this made it easy to find just the right angle and hold it there. He stroked his own cock slowly. 

“Can I come on you,” Hal murmured, and Bruce groaned and arched and thrust up into him, and the best thing was that Bruce came first – completely not according to Bruce’s plan, he could tell that, but Bruce sweated and shook and gasped, and his thrusts were convulsive, and through the hoarseness of his moans Hal could hear a strangled fuck as Bruce came inside him, emptying those magnificent balls. Hal jerked himself hard and fast, feeling that, and splattered Bruce’s chest. Hal tipped forward, blitzed as hell, literally fucking dizzy with it. 

“Jesus God,” he said, his lips feeling thick. “Oh my fucking God.”

“Hal,” Bruce whispered. His voice sounded shredded.

“Mm.” Hal started nuzzling at his neck. He shifted a little and let Bruce’s cock slide out. He was a little proud of himself at that expert maneuver. God, Bruce smelled divine. He nuzzled him some more.

“Hal,” Bruce said again, a little more insistent, and right, he had forgotten about that. Hal released the green ropes with a flick. Bruce exhaled like he had been holding that breath for twenty minutes, and his arms came around Hal.

“Sweetheart,” murmured in his ear, and then Hal caught sight of his arms. 

Bruce’s arms were lashed with angry red marks, marks that were going to bruise. “Christ,” Hal said, pushing himself out of Bruce’s arms and sitting up. “You let me—Christ, you can’t do that. You should have told me, I didn’t mean to—”

“I liked it,” Bruce said blearily. His eyes were still closed. “I promise to be a concerned lover again in a few minutes but right now I just came harder than I ever have and sweet Christ but you are going to let me enjoy it.”

“That—” Hal sat there. The man had a point. Everything they had done in bed, every single action, had been guided by Hal’s needs above all else. Bruce had been infinitely accommodating, infinitely along for the ride, from the word go. The man deserved to ride out his orgasm in peace. 

Bruce’s eyes flicked open. “Sorry,” he said. “That was. . .” He made a limp gesture with his arm, which fell back against the bed.

“Bruce,” Hal said quietly. “I am not okay with hurting you.”

“I’ll let you know when you are.”

Hal got up and stalked to the bathroom. He slammed the door behind him. Quicker than he had thought Bruce could move (at least post-orgasm) the door had been banged back on its hinges. Hal spun and shoved Bruce, pinned him against the wall. “Don’t you ever kick open a door I’ve closed,” Hal panted.

“Don’t you give me orders in my house.”

Hal slammed Bruce harder against the wall, only he didn’t. He didn’t mean to. A green wall had slammed Bruce, and Hal gained control of it at the last possible second. Bruce was naked and breathing hard and immobilized against the wall. There was a green tendril snaked around his throat. In a panic Hal dissolved the construct and sank to his knees. He cradled his head in his hands. 

After a minute he became aware Bruce was sitting beside him. “Don’t try to make this okay,” Hal said. Bruce said nothing. Hal looked up. He could see the marks on Bruce’s chest, the marks where the construct had slammed into him. He would have bruises to match the ones on his arms. They just sat there, and Hal revolved the many possibilities in his head.

Not too long ago – a lifetime ago – they had sat in this bathroom, and Bruce had said, _is this where I lose you?_ Hal had not even known how to make sense of that question. Well he knew now. 

“The pills,” Hal finally said. “The things I’m doing with Dinah. It’s not working. You can’t be with me. You know it and I know it. That’s the second time I’ve come close to hurting you. Let’s be honest, to killing you. The sex is good, I’ll grant you that, but no sex is worth your life.”

Still Bruce said nothing. They just sat there. Jesus Christ, of all the conversations to be having while Bruce’s cum was still leaking out of him. His brain leaped desperately at that possibility. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was because he had just been fucked. The brakes had been off, in his brain. All sorts of weird shit happening. Maybe it wasn’t the PTSD. Because it was completely normal that people who had just been righteously fucked tried to kill their partners. 

Hal scrubbed at his face. “Sorry,” he said again, and this time he had the courage to rise, and pull a towel from the neat fluffy stack in the corner, and tie it around his waist, because he could do many things but this he could not do naked. “I’ll—get my stuff out of here by tonight,” he said. He hadn’t even thought about that part, about how seamlessly he had integrated into life here at the Manor, and how much of his stuff must be scattered around everywhere. 

“Listen, I’m—sorry,” he said once more, but Bruce was just sitting there, apparently lost in thoughts that had nothing to do with him. Hal went to the bedroom and began gathering his clothes. The laughter and kisses and frantic de-clothing of earlier this afternoon seemed like another life. His fingers felt heavy. 

When Hal was fully clothed, Bruce came out of the bathroom. He leaned in the doorway, like he always did, the fucking Labrador. He was still naked. Hal looked away. He would not ask Bruce to get dressed. Would not ask another thing of him. 

“Before you go,” Bruce said, and Hal’s throat gave a convulsive clench at that one, at the calm acceptance of that _before you go_. “Before you go, will you open that top drawer of the dresser over there, please? The one on the left.”

“I—” Hal sighed, and walked across the room. He opened the drawer. It was rolls of spare underwear. Hermès Black Label, midnight blue silk. Of course. 

“Reach in the back of the drawer. There’s something there I want you to see.”

Hal complied, and his fingers found a thin bag, and two small metal things inside it. He pulled it out. The bag was transparent, and the rings nestled in his hand. He stared at them.

“You son of a bitch,” he said through numb lips.

“I was waiting,” Bruce said. “The truth is, I don’t even know if we can. It’s probably foolish, to think our identities would survive that kind of scrutiny. But I bought them because I knew what I wanted, and I was willing to wait. I thought we could figure it out, one way or the other.”

Hal turned his head. The rings felt like they were burning into his flesh. “You son of a bitch,” he said again, his voice shaking. “Do not do this to me. I am trying—I am trying to do the right thing here, and you are making it—you are making this impossible, why are you—fuck, you know what has to happen here, don’t—”

“Walk out that door then. I’m not stopping you. There’s nothing holding you here but the knowledge that this thing we have, this thing neither of us went looking for, is not something you can turn your back on. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how hard it is.”

Hal clenched the rings in his hand. He wanted to clutch them and never let go. He wanted to walk across the room and wrap his arms around Bruce. He wanted to pretend this afternoon hadn’t happened. 

“No,” he said. “No. I’ve been worrying, all this time, what I could ever say to you to explain to you how much I love you. What I could say that was half as good as what you said to me. And there’s nothing. That’s just it, there’s nothing. The only thing I can tell you is this. I want to be with you more than I want anything in the world. Hell, I want to wear that fucking ring more than I want anything in the world. All right? But the way I love you is, I love you more than I love the thing I want most in the world. I love being with you, but I love you more. And I will not—do you hear me, I _will_ not—ever put you in danger because of something I want.”

He set the rings down on the dresser. “I love you and will never love anyone else. So good-bye,” he said. And somewhere, with strength he didn’t really believe he possessed, he walked out that door. There was no Bruce standing in the doorway this time. He walked out the door and closed it behind him, and walked down the long quiet corridor and down the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

For once in his life, the Guardians came through for him, and he had an extended off-world assignment at exactly the right moment.

He didn’t really keep track of time, when he was on assignment – for one thing, it was logistically close to impossible, and for another, his body fell into the Oan time that was the standard Corps measurement. So sometimes by the time he came back to the Watchtower and checked in with the League after an extended assignment in another sector, he would find that months had gone by, where he had calculated a few weeks. 

He kept in touch with Dinah, though, when he could. He stayed regular with his meds – both of them – and he wrote messages to her when he thought the sub-space channels would reach. 

_Guess this is your first inter-planetary consult_ , he wrote, the first time he managed to get through.

 _Not really_ , she wrote back, which made him laugh out loud, because of course. Of course. 

So it ended up being three months before he was back on Earth full-time, in fact. He had been on the Watchtower once or twice in the intervening time, and briefed the League twice on the situations he was monitoring that might pose some threat to Earth. Bruce was there, of course – suited and cowled, lenses up. Bruce had asked perceptive questions, and Hal had answered (he hoped) thoughtfully and professionally, and their interaction had been respectful and business-like and everything that made him go back to his quarters and grip the bathroom sink and shake with nausea and longing. 

Thank God he had only had to do that twice. But it was enough to see what the rest of his life was going to look like. It still beat the hell out of Watson, though.

 _Does it?_ Dinah wrote him. He didn’t have an answer for that one. It was just a different kind of prison. 

_At least I get to do my job_ , he answered. _I’m doing some actual good out here._

And he was. He knew he was. He was a good field commander. He was doing good work. For once, he even got his reports turned in on time. The Guardians were probably going to call in an independent psych consult on him for that alone, because he was pretty sure that in all his years with the Corps he had never, ever turned in a report on time, but there was nothing like having your life shredded and re-built to help you adjust your sense of deadline. 

So yeah, he was back on Earth for brief stays, but it was a solid three months before he was off-duty for the foreseeable future, and could fall on the bed in his apartment and sleep for eighteen solid hours. He only woke because his phone was buzzing on the bedside table beside him, and he knocked it off trying to answer, and then knocked his head leaning over and trying to retrieve it, but his eyes were too swollen and exhausted for him to even try to open them.

“Yeah,” he croaked. 

“Hal? Are you there? Hal?”

“Carol,” he managed. “How nice to hear from you.”

“Yeah? Is it nice? Oh I’m so glad. That just fills my heart with joy to hear, Hal, because I was just thinking how fucking nice it would be if you fucking decided to show up for fucking work once every quarter, you know? That’s something else that would be nice.”

He groaned and rolled over. He scrubbed at his face. “Carol, I just got back on world literally last night. I am flat on my fucking back here.”

“Awww poor Hal. Listen you ungrateful vegetable, this fifth-generation F-22 Raptor that I’m supposed to be testing this week is not gonna fly itself, you know? So I need your ass on fucking flight deck and I need it there now, and boo hoo hoo I don’t care how many little purple aliens you shot out of the sky yesterday, playtime is over, all right, and it’s time to suit up and do a real job for once in your life.”

He blinked. Had Carol suffered some sort of head injury? Had he fallen through some hole in the universe, doubled back on the space-time continuum somehow?

“Ahhh. . .” he began. “I can be in the tower by this afternoon, I guess, if you give me—”

“Fuck that,” she yelled. “I don’t need you in the goddamn tower, I need you in the air, am I somehow not speaking English here?”

He struggled to sit up, clutching the duvet around him. Jesus’s nuts, why was his apartment so cold? His thermostat had really gotten fucked while he was gone. “Carol, I don’t. . . I’m not really understanding what you’re. . .”

He heard her laugh on the other end. “Yeah you do.”

He sat all the way up. “Are you. . . saying what I think you’re saying?” He almost didn’t have the voice for it. 

“Yeah. I’m saying what you think I’m saying. I’ve got insurance clearance. You’re bonded. Now I want my best pilot in the air and I want him there now.”

“No—wait—you have to tell me how this happened, I don’t—what the hell is going on?”

He could hear the grin in her voice. “New insurance company. They came to me, and I got a good offer and I took it, and they let me stipulate you with no problem. I mean yes, it’s completely insane, it’s some sort of insane oversight but you better believe I saw the chance and drove right for it. I’ve been waiting to tell you until you were back, but it happened like weeks ago. Now are we done here? Because get your fucking ass in the air, flyboy.”

He was stumbling across the room for his pants before he had even hung up. His body was in motion before his brain had caught up. And then he remembered that he hadn’t actually hung the phone up, and he fumbled for it in the sheets. “Carol? Carol?” All he heard was her laughter on the other end.

“Ten bucks and my left tit says you are even now wearing your pants backward, you idiot.”

“What? I mean yes, that is absolutely the case, I’m still just—I love you. Have I said that recently? Because I love you so fucking much.”

She laughed again. “I’m mainly into seeing how sweet your ass looks in flight gear, and it’s even sweeter when it’s climbing into the cockpit. So get on deck and gimme some of that view, all right?”

“You got it,” he said, and was halfway out the door before he realized that yes, she had in fact been correct, his pants were literally on backward and his shirt was inside out and his phone had been left in the rumpled heap of his bedclothes, and Sol, he had completely forgotten about Sol, maybe that was why the apartment was so cold? He called Sol from the car, as he was breaking every speed limit known to mankind on his way to the airstrip.

“Easley,” came the answer. 

“Ah. . . Sol?”

“Fly! You back home now?”

“Ah, yeah, where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I? I’m at work, like a normal human being. It’s one in the afternoon, you just now getting up?”

“Is it?” He glanced up at the sky. That would certainly explain why the sun looked so weird this morning. Being back Earthside was so disorienting sometimes. After being in space it always gave him this uneasy feeling, like whoa, why is that star so close to us? 

“I mean, yeah, I guess I am. Getting up, that is. I’m headed to work though. Just realized I didn’t get a chance to see you last night or today, and just wanted to say hey, and apologize for being the world’s most sucktastic roommate, that’s all.”

A pause. “Fly. My man. Is your head in your ass just one hundred percent of the time?”

“I mean, I do have an official diagnosis, so yeah, probably, why?”

“My man, I moved out like a month ago. I’ve got my own place now. I left you like a thousand voicemails and even put a note on the kitchen counter, ain’t you even look around your own house?”

“Huh,” he said. “Okay. Well, that’s. . . great, I guess? Talk about breaking up by text, but I’ll let that go by I guess. Where are you living now? Can I come by?”

“Aw man you bet, I’ll text you directions and you come on by after work, we’ll get some beer and you’ll tell me all your adventures, sound good?”

“Sure,” he said. Sol being gone was even more disorienting than the sun being somehow wrong. “I just—was there a problem with my place, was there something you needed different? Because we could have switched bedrooms if you needed, you just never said, so I—”

Sol laughed. “Nah man, it ain’t that, your place was great. I just needed a little more room, that’s all.”

“Oh. Okay. A little more room? Where are you—where exactly are you living?”

“Oh I got me a little place at the Sutterfield, you know where that is?”

Hal choked. “You—what? You’re living at the Sutterfield? I guess that analyst position is working out, huh?”

Sol laughed again. “Nah, that wasn’t really for me. I mean it was great and all, Wayne Tech is awesome, but after a month there, this dude from another company calls me up, says he’d like to make me an offer, and it was more money so I went with that. I’m working for Magna now.”

Hal laughed out loud. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “You goddamn son of a bitch, you got poached. I bet Bruce about shit a skyscraper.”

“Aw, he was cool. He matched it, and I did think about it, on account of him giving me that first leg up and all, but in the end I gotta look out for myself, and Magna’s benefits package was the edge for me. But Bruce is cool, and I’m still doing some spec work for him on the DL. Some kinda underground stuff, if you know what I mean, and I’m betting you do.”

“Are you. . .” Hal blinked. What sort of world had he fallen into? Was it possible Sol was now working the books for Batman’s operation? “Jesus, I really need a drink,” he muttered. 

“All right Fly, it’s good to catch up man, but I got a meeting in three and I gotta race. I love you man. See you for beer?”

“Yeah,” he said faintly. “Sure.” He clicked off the phone and sat in the freeway’s predictable motionless traffic jam, which was apparently happening for no fucking reason, because it was apparently one in the afternoon? 

“Well I’ll be goddamned,” he said aloud, and laughed.

* * *

“Right this way, Mr. Jordan,” Janine said, and absolutely nothing had changed in her chilly, elegant smile, or the silent sweep of her heels over the carpet. Hal followed obediently, down the long hallway to the corner office that wasn’t really a corner office – it was the entire south side of the building, encased in glass. The desk area on a slight dais, the butter leather sofas by the window several steps down, the crystal decanters of amber liquid catching the late afternoon sun. And Bruce, behind his desk.

He looked up with that faintly irritated expression that was the way his face always looked at the office, and his frown deepened. “Unbelievable,” he said, not getting up. “Still haven’t figured out how to operate a cell phone, I see?”

“Well I like to keep up tradition,” Hal said, and Bruce gestured wearily to a chair.

“Thank you Janine,” he said.

“Of course Mr. Wayne.” She swished out like silent judgment, and Hal waited for the door to click behind her, though he had no doubt Janine made a whole career out of not hearing as much as possible. 

“Welcome back,” Bruce said. “Productive mission?”

“Very. But you heard most of that at the League briefing last week. There’s other stuff, but I can send that on to you if you want.”

“Any intel would be welcome. Even if there’s nothing we can do about it, or even if it seems to have little to do with us, more information is always better than less.”

“Sure,” Hal said, and he thought his chest would collapse on itself. To sit this close to Bruce, to exchange business-like pleasantries – he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t. But he had not come here to make this about him. 

“So,” he said. “I really came by to say thank you.”

“Oh? For what?”

“Those magical unicorns. I had no idea they were looking to diversify into underwriting, but Carol called me last week with some super surprising information about her sweet new insurance deal, and how what do you know, hiring a convicted felon to push a billion dollars of steel across the sky was magically no problem with her new insurers, because magic. That took some real investigative digging, let me tell you.”

“Oh.” Bruce gave a thin smile. “That wasn’t actually about you, though I suppose indirectly it was. I’ve been looking to get us into insurance for some time – large-scale only, particularly with government contracts. After we lost the bid on that deal a few months ago, it just seemed like the right time.”

“You lost the bid?”

“We did indeed, for which I have you to thank. After your analysis of those specs, it became clear to me what our expense ceiling was going to be with those latest engineering modifications. Magna was willing to go above it and we weren’t. Now they’re getting soaked in production, and we’ve had a narrow escape thanks to you. To be honest I think the only way to make money doing business with the government these days is by underwriting, so that’s what I nudged us into. Ferris Air was an obvious target.”

“Okay,” Hal said. “Well. . . thanks anyway, I guess. I’m. . .” Grateful, he almost said. “Happy,” he said instead.

“Good then,” Bruce said. “Works out well for both of us. What do you make of the modifications on the Raptor?”

Hal sat there. “I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “I can’t.”

Bruce was silent, just sitting there behind the desk with his hands steepled. For a vertiginous moment Hal was back in this room over a year ago, laying out his story for an impassive Bruce, hoping for that loan to get Amber off his back. The same lurch of nausea in the pit of his stomach, though for very different reasons today. “I know I’m supposed to do this thing where we are having this nice conversation, and I just really can’t,” Hal said. 

“All right,” Bruce said. There was nothing on his face. He might be responding to a quarterly report. 

“I am. . .better,” Hal said. “If that’s of interest. Better than I was, anyway. Feeling a little more in control. You were right about getting help, and getting it from Dinah. That’s all been. . . really good, actually.”

“Of course it’s of interest,” Bruce said. “And I’m glad.”

“So. . . I guess I was wondering. The second part of why I’m here today is that I was hoping I might be able to interest you in having dinner with me – say at Chez Manisse? I hear good things about that place, even if they still don’t have hot wings on the menu.”

“I’ve actually been seeing someone,” Bruce said. 

“Oh. Okay then. Well, I’m glad for you. Happy, I mean,” he said. “You deserve it.”

Bruce was silent, and Hal glanced down at the lush carpet, where he was surprised to see that the spillage of all his internal organs had made not a single stain. Everything inside him had drained onto the floor, and his body was completely and utterly hollow. And yet somehow he was sitting here not knee-deep in blood and sinew, but wearing the same clothes he had put on this morning, and the floor around him was spotless. The thing to do was to follow up his bland congratulations with some other meaningless pleasantry, but he couldn’t quite locate any at the moment. Couldn’t quite swallow, in fact. It was funny, back when he hadn’t been able to fly, and he had thought that was the worst feeling in the world, that there was no loss more profound. And going to Watson, he had thought that was imprisonment, that was loss. What a child he had been. 

He looked up and Bruce was still just sitting there, nothing on his face. “Doesn’t feel very nice, does it,” Bruce said. 

“What are you—”

“I am seeing someone,” Bruce said. “That part is true enough. But as pleasant as that relationship has been, it pales in comparison with the pleasure of watching your face when I tell you about it.”

“You son of a fucking bitch,” Hal said shakily.

“Am I? How curious. And yet you are the one who walked out on me. Not once, in fact, but twice. Twice you did it to me. Twice you pushed me away because you believed that you knew best. Do you remember that? You did a fair job of gutting me when you were trying to convince me to stay away from Watson. And again a few months ago, when you—”

“I was trying to protect you, you bastard,” Hal said, and he rose, his limbs shaking. He wanted nothing so much as to sweep everything off this carefully ordered desk. He quivered with wanting to, but he was in better control now, and he stalked to the wide windows, trying to still and center his breathing. He stood there, practicing every stupid breathing exercise Dinah had ever taught him, but goddamn shattering one of these windows with a laser of green light would feel pretty fucking good right now.

“Maybe so,” Bruce said. He still hadn’t gotten up from his desk. “But I think we can acknowledge that I am the last person on this earth in need of your protection. The fact remains that when things got too hard, you walked out.”

“Because I would have killed you!” Hal shouted. “Jesus Christ, how is this difficult math? And I didn’t ‘walk out,’ I removed myself from a potentially dangerous situation until I could get in a better place, until I could be the person you deserved to be with!”

“And yet that’s not what you said,” Bruce said. His voice was soft. “What you said was, good-bye.”

Hal felt all the justice of that in the middle of his body like a fist. So there were still things he could feel. How interesting. He had thought he would be numb forever. He leaned forward and tipped his head against the cool glass. It was bracing, somehow. He shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he found enough strength to straighten his spine. He wondered if he needed to pick up his internal organs from the floor, or if Janine would see to that. _Next_ , she might call, sweeping the last of his liver into the dustbin and brushing off her hands.

Hal walked back over to the desk. Bruce was still just sitting there, hands still steepled. 

“You’re right,” Hal said. “You’re right. I apologize for. . . for everything, actually.” He started the long walk to the door, which felt like it was several football fields away. When he was almost to the door he stopped, and came back into the room. 

“Actually, you asked me a question I never answered,” he said, and Bruce cocked a brow. “You asked me who Rusty was.”

Bruce was looking at him as though he might be faintly concerned for his mental stability, which was actually a pretty good call. “A while ago,” Hal said. “I called you Rusty because of this thing you do where you stand in a doorway, and then because you are the size of a tool shed it is impossible to get around you, and it reminded me of this thing our dog used to do. He was a Labrador. He would always put himself in doorways and make it completely fucking impossible to get around.”

Bruce looked if anything more concerned, and Hal gave a short laugh. “Which is you, actually. That’s you, from first to last. Completely fucking impossible to get around, in every conceivable way. And I never will. Not really. I meant what I said when I left. I just. . . wanted you to know that. Anyway.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Size of a tool shed?”

“Yeah, not my best line probably. It was just a. . .”

“Metaphor.”

“Yeah asshole, I know the word, it’s not like I was struggling to remember it, forgive me for being a little off my game here.”

Bruce gave his first faint smile at that, and Hal did too, though it felt like it was stretching his face. It was their old rhythm, their old back-and-forth. They would find that rhythm again, somehow. Not as lovers, but as the uneasy allies they had always been. It would be enough; he would make it enough.

He headed back to the door, feeling Bruce’s gaze on him. He even managed a breezy smile to Janine on his way out, and she returned it, in her Cylon-like way. He punched the button for the ground floor on the gleaming brass elevator, and he didn’t even collapse against the side of the elevator when he got inside it.


	6. Chapter 6

So as it turned out, this was the story of how Hal Jordan fought clear of his blackmailing white trash mother and her abusive boyfriend, slept with Bruce Wayne, went to jail for killing said boyfriend, got out of jail, kept on sleeping with Bruce Wayne, lost flying, struggled with PTSD, got flying back, and then lost Bruce Wayne. It was a busy eighteen months.

The balance sheet looked pretty good though: he was no longer in prison, he no longer had either Amber or Buck to deal with, he was back in the cockpit as well as back being a Green Lantern, he had his money and reputation (most of it) back, and he had his mental health (more or less) under control. He had gotten everything back, really. If you were to line it all up in two columns, gains and losses, the gains would absolutely cancel out the losses, no question. The plus side of the column was way longer. Over on the loss side there was really only one.

It was the one he tried not to look at.

“This is a space where we look at those things,” Dinah said, when he was back making regular appointments with her. They were no longer weekly, but still regular. 

“I know that,” he said. “I get that. But this is how I’m surviving. It’s not a thing I can talk about. He is not a thing I can talk about.”

“Okay,” she said, and left it at that. Somehow that depressed him even more, that she wasn’t pushing him on it. Like, if she had been pushing – and he knew what Dinah was like when she was pressing hard at something, like a surgeon probing a wound – but if she had been, it would have been because it was an urgent issue that needed to be dealt with. But this was not. This was a chronic condition, a more or less regular state of being, and she was respecting his space on it. The finality of that was almost more than he could stand.

He reinstalled both Tinder and Grindr on his phone. He ignored them both. He told himself that was moving on, because he had the apps installed. He let Sol set him up on a date with a woman in his department. They spent the whole evening talking about Sol. Turned out she was actually into Sol, which made sense. Sol and the woman were now dating. Also, Sol had been promoted. His income was now roughly three times Hal’s income. 

“It’s hard not to resent you a little bit,” Hal said over a beer one night at Sol’s palatial apartment, as they were watching the game on his seventy-inch. 

“Nah, that’s fair,” Sol said. 

He reached out to Barry, and they even did some stuff together now. It wasn’t like before, and Hal didn’t know if it ever would be. Barry was sure a lot friendlier to him now that he and Bruce had broken up, and Hal wasn’t sure if he could forgive him for that. He wondered if in some part of Barry’s brain, he thought Hal had complied with his sick ultimatum by breaking up with Bruce. Or had he broken up with Bruce? Not really, from his point of view. Maybe Bruce didn’t think that he had broken up with Hal. Who really knew what the truth of things was? 

Spending time with Ollie when he was Earthside was great, because Ollie had always been about low expectations. That should probably have been irritating – like, did he just not expect things of Hal because he believed him to be mentally and emotionally incompetent? But sometimes hanging with your best friend and playing endless hours of video games was exactly what you needed. 

He had other things that filled his time, too. It wasn’t like his life was some barren wasteland. ( _I never said it was_ , Dinah responded, when he said that.) He was glad as hell to be back in the cockpit, but he hadn’t actually hated his time in the tower at Ferris, and it had afforded him time to think about flight engineering in a way he really hadn’t before. He kept a sketchbook of ideas, and sometimes when no one was around he fiddled with it. Just things that occurred to him, as he was piloting. Things like, what would the flight controls look like if you adjusted that one knob by half an inch to the left? Stuff no sane person thought about, probably. There were also some sneaky ways to infiltrate alien tech into current flight designs, and sometimes to amuse himself he sketched out what those hybrids would look like. A man needed something other than video games and beer in his life. 

When Ollie said that exact same thing to him, he winced. “I doubt that,” Hal said. “Video games and beer contain all of life. They are, as it were, the full richness of the best this world has to offer. Fermented grains and random adrenaline dumps – isn’t that what we’re all after, in the end?”

“Speak for yourself. I like getting laid occasionally too.”

“But that’s gonna fall under the header of adrenaline, so same thing really.”

“Same thing?? There speaks the voice of a man who has not been getting served. What you need is to get back out there, my man.”

“Um, sure. But not right now, I’m playing Torbjorn this round.”

Ollie snatched the controller from his hand. “Listen to me. Dinah’s out of town this week, and I have to go to this party, and I do not want to go alone. You are going with me.”

Hal groaned. “God please no.”

“Yes, I’m not gonna take no for an answer on this one. Come on, it’ll be fun. You get to dress up, look sharp. You could shave. Floss, even, who knows. So shut your whining, we’re doing this. I’m picking you up at seven. Wear a tux.”

“I don’t have a tux.”

“So go in the closet and pick one out, we’re the same size. Actually wait, you’re skinnier than I am in the waist, and there’s one that’s always been too snug on me. It’s the Zegna, go pick that one out. Do you have any decent shoes?”

“Define decent.”

“Fuck me, we are going shopping.”

“Okay but hang on, give me the controller back, I’m gonna get killed.” 

Ollie flicked the power off, and Hal gasped. “Uncalled for,” he said. “I hope you realize what you’ve done.” 

“Get in the shower. Get some clothes on. This is happening. You and me, date night. Come on, get your sorry ass up.” And he slapped Hal across the back of the head for good measure. 

So that was how Hal ended up wearing a tux (and Ollie was right, it was a gorgeous tux, and fit him like a glove) and too-expensive shoes and climbing into Ollie’s Lotus later that night. Ollie’s once-over glance was approving, and it was hard not to feel a little good about life, as he slipped on his shades and eased back in the passenger seat and roared up the freeway in what was easily the most beautiful car in fifty miles. That feeling lasted all the way until they turned onto North Shore Boulevard, and Hal realized Ollie had taken back roads to land them at the north end of the bay, and fuck everything, but fuck Oliver Queen most of all.

“Ollie,” he said tightly. “Where exactly is this party you’re taking me to?”

“Hmm?” Ollie said, pretending he couldn’t hear him over the non-existent roar of the Lotus's engine. 

“Goddammit Ol,” he said, reaching over to try to wrench the steering wheel away from him. But Ollie was too fast for him, and blocked him. 

“Don’t make me use this,” Hal threatened, holding up his ring hand. 

“Oh come on, don’t be such a weenus. It’s a giant party, you’ll never see a single person you know, much less Bruce, and it’s free liquor. Lots of great music, lots of hot people of. . .all kinds, lots of free food—”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t actually know whether I’m into men or women these days.”

“Correct. Do you?”

“Mainly I’m into internet porn, and by internet porn I mean Overwatch playthroughs. Come on Ol, let’s just go back to your place. I promise we can keep the tuxes on.”

“Nothing doing. We’re here now, so try to look cool and don’t stiff my game. Here we go,” Ollie said, sliding the Lotus under the Manor’s archway, where a small fleet of valets was working the cars. 

“Please someone shoot me right fucking immediately,” Hal muttered, getting out of the car and following Ollie into the side entrance. 

But for once in his life, Oliver Queen was right. The evening ended up being enjoyable, and not once did Hal even catch sight of Bruce, who might not even have been there, for all he knew. Ollie took great enjoyment in shepherding Hal around from one group of people to another, and introducing him to them all as his date, with his arm draped across him. “Getting a little handsy,” Hal said at one point, as Ollie’s arm got firmer around his waist, but Ollie just laughed louder and grabbed another champagne flute, as well as a comfortable squeeze of Hal’s ass. 

After a while Hal lost track of how much champagne that was for Ollie, and went in search of a place to get some air. The one advantage of a party at the Manor was, he knew where all the little-known escape hatches were, so he found his way to a quiet side terrace with little difficulty. He wished he smoked or something like that, to give him something to do with his hands. The party was okay, but he was ready to go home, and it was clear that as far as Ollie was concerned the party was just getting started. He was the center of every conversational group, his tall blond head towering over everyone around him, and his braying laugh carried over the whole downstairs. There were at least five people of varying genders following his every move around the ballroom, all of them hoping to get lucky, and Hal smiled to watch it. Ollie certainly did not give the impression of the relentless monogamy he in fact practiced. Hal tossed the remains of his scotch in the bushes and contemplated an escape.

“Green Lantern,” came the voice from somewhere above him, and Hal looked up to see a tiny Bat perched on the cornice overhead. 

“Hey kid,” he said. “What’s up?”

Damian landed with a thunk beside him. He was dressed in a miniature tuxedo that was probably five times as expensive as Hal’s, and he wore a scowl on his small angry face. “I’m bored with this party,” he announced. “It’s pointless. I’ve spoken to all the people Father wanted to introduce me to, and now everyone is simply intoxicating themselves like mindless idiots. It makes no sense.”

“Could not agree more. Hey, wanna blow outta here with me?”

Damian’s face lit up, and then shadowed. “I can’t,” he said. “Father will be angry. He asked me to socialize with the guests.”

Hal nodded thoughtfully. “I see,” he said. “Well, it’s important to obey. Quick question, though, am I a guest?”

“Of course you are.”

“Cool. And you’re talking to me right now, so that means we’re socializing, yeah?”

“I. . .yes. I suppose so.”

“So if you and I went off somewhere together, that wouldn’t really be you ditching the party, would it? Because you’d be with me, so it would be more like, you’re continuing to socialize with a guest, just in a quieter environment.”

Damian narrowed his eyes suspiciously, and looked so much like Bruce that Hal wanted to laugh out loud. “You’re an excellent reasoner, Green Lantern.”

“See? This is what people so rarely get about me. Stick with me, kid.” He glanced in the glass doors of the balcony. There was a knot of people standing there, blocking the door. A woman’s high-pitched laughter drifted out to them through the door. 

“Ugh,” Damian said. “Countess Dutzel-Dorssenheim. I loathe that woman. She calls me little dumpling, and at last year’s Christmas party she actually pinched my cheek. I ought to have sliced her jugular.”

“Then we do this the old-fashioned way,” Hal said, quickly tugging Damian with him behind the stone niche to the right of the door. They were hidden from every sightline here. It was a risk, but a calculated one. Hal summoned a small construct to lift them quickly and silently to the second floor, landing them at the casement window by the guest hall. They were through the window and the construct dissolved before anyone had seen. Damian was cackling with wicked glee. 

They trotted down the hall, and were almost caught at the bend toward the main stairwell. There was a woman and two men, and both of them were applied to various points of her neck. “What on earth are they doing,” Damian whispered contemptuously.

“Testing her perfume,” Hal whispered back, but then the woman straightened up and began leading the men toward one of the bedrooms, which was to say, right toward where the two of them were pressed against the wall, in the shadows. 

“In here,” Damian said, unlatching a small door that Hal didn’t even know existed. It was so small that even Damian had to bend down, and Hal had to make it through on hands and knees. Damian pressed the door quietly shut behind them, and just in time, to judge by the moans coming from the hallway, and the low throaty laughter. 

“Disgusting,” Damian said. “Follow me.”

It must have been an old dumb-waiter chute, converted at some point to impossibly tiny stairs. Damian was clambering up like a monkey. “Hey kid, wait up,” Hal called. There had to have been some of the White Rabbit’s cake in the buffet downstairs, because it felt like the walls of the miniature stairwell were getting tighter and tighter around him. Damian’s head appeared just above him. 

“Father used to use these all the time, when he was young,” Damian said. “Look there.” He nodded to a spot on the wall, but it was dark as pitch, so Hal illumined his ring, just gently. Sure enough, there was a tiny carved “RBW” just above him. A pictogram of some sort carved beside it – a sword, maybe, crossed with an arrow. Hal laughed. 

“Little hell-raiser,” he murmured. He kept climbing after Damian, and heard the creak of the hatch opening above them. Damian wiggled out, and Hal more or less tumbled after him. The room they were in was only a little lighter than the stairwell. A huge room, but heavy curtains drawn all around it. Hal stood and looked around. It wasn’t a part of the Manor he knew.

“My grand-parents’ room,” Damian said. “I hide in here sometimes. Pennyworth is the only one who goes in here.”

He knew they needed to get out of there, but he couldn’t quite resist. He wandered over to the side of the bed that had picture frames on it. The enamel and rhinestones on the antique frames glinted in what little light there was. He bent down to them. A beautiful woman with her arms around a beautiful man. Another, smaller picture – an impish little boy with a mop of dark curls and a dimpled smile. He was a bit of a blur, because the camera had caught him in motion, chasing after a big fluffy dog of some sort. Hal’s heart contracted a bit. So much innocence in that picture, so much mischief. 

Damian was waiting by the door, and Hal hurried to join him. Once he was out of that room, he recognized where he was. That hellish little staircase had disoriented him. It was only half a flight up to the family’s rooms, and to the long hallway that led to Bruce’s rooms. “Follow me,” Damian said, and then they were through the corridor that led to his room, and the door safely shut behind them.

So that was how Hal spent most of the annual Wayne Foundation gala holed up in Damian’s room playing video games. It was definitely the most enjoyable party of his life, and he had forgotten what a thing of beauty Damian’s set-up was. “Whoa whoa whoa, so this is new,” he said. “Nice. You’ve got like two more consoles since I was here, and at least another screen?”

“Yes, it’s adequate.”

Hal rolled his eyes. He scrolled through Damian’s terrifying video library. The Halo Master Chief Collection, Rainbow 6 Siege, Call of Duty Black-Ops, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, and Fallout 4 – none of them were games a normal twelve-year-old should be playing, but then Damian was not a normal twelve-year-old, and Bruce had always said that if he wasn’t allowed some release in fantasy, things got even stranger in real life. 

“Have you played through all of Fallout?” He flicked it open and took a look around.

“More or less,” Damian shrugged. 

“More or less? What is this – some kind of fortified place you’ve got going on here? And it’s full of. . . okay, what the ever-living hell, there are nine thousand deformed animals in here, are you running some kind of cryptid animal shelter here or—”

“Give me that,” Damian said, snatching the controller back. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, it’s very advanced strategy.”

“Fine fine, good to see the genetic propensity to condescension is right on point there. Open up Siege, let’s play around a little. Think you can take me?”

Damian smirked. “Prepare for your destruction,” he said.

Hal lost track of time, curled up there on Damian’s sofa, whooping and hollering like he was the twelve-year-old. The kid’s reflexes were of course amazing, but no surprise there. After a few rounds Hal bent to dig around in Damian’s fridge for. . . “Coconut lime water?” Hal said, re-surfacing with a suspiciously healthy-looking drink. Damian made a face.

“I’ve been forbidden to drink anything but purified water with natural flavors.”

“Jesus kid, I had no idea. My condolences. Ah shit, that is the second time that bomb has gotten me, I cannot defuse this motherfu—this irritating object here, is what I mean to say.”

“You’re doing it wrong, you’re taking too much time. Here, let me show you.”

“Okay, I would just like to point out that I have defused _actual_ bombs, and this is nothing like—”

“There you go.”

“Oh. Huh. Oh fuck me, you wanna engage here? This dude is about to murder me.”

“Hang on, I am coming to your assistance.”

“Yeah? Well you’re taking your time.”

“Stop being so impatient, I’ve got to—”

“Jesus! Look out!”

“I am! I am! But you’ve neglected to account for all your lines of sight here, we’ve got—”

“Oh, _I’ve_ neglected to account for it? The one of us actually trained in intergalactic combat, and _I’m_ the one who’s—”

“Busted,” said a voice from the doorway, and Hal craned his neck to see who it was. He grinned.

“Hey Dick, what’s up?”

“Hal,” Dick said, exchanging a high five and clambering onto the back of the sofa. “Okay, you realize if we get caught up here all our asses are going to be in a sling, right? I’m supposed to be stuck like glue to the Mayor, who let me just say is the single most boring individual on the face of the earth, and I am going to slip into a coma if I stay at that party one more second. Cool, what’re we playing?”

“Siege, you in?” 

“Oh you bet. Hey, how about some good old-fashioned Mario Kart?”

Damian and Hal groaned together. “Grayson, you are forty-seven years old,” Damian said. “No, we are absolutely not going to play Mario Kart.”

“Who’s playing Mario Kart?”

“Timbo!” Dick leaned back and fist-bumped Tim, who was standing over the sofa scowling at them. “Give me some back-up here, we should play Mario Kart instead, right?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely we should, let me just run to the drug store and pick up my fiber pills first. Shut up Dick, we’re playing this. Hal, you’re about to get—”

“I know! I know! Look, this dude has it in for me, all right? I have died about seven times just trying to—”

“Eight,” Damian interjected.

“Well, that’s nine. Goddammit.”

“Call Jason,” Tim said. “He must have played this game seventy times. I’m sure he knows how to defeat this level.”

“Lantern, what are you doing. Lantern. Your actions are making no objective sense. You’re not—oh. All right then. I suppose that wasn’t the worst maneuver in the world.”

“Oh you suppose it wasn’t.”

“Hey Jason, you busy right now?” Tim was holding his finger to his ear so he could hear over the roar of Hal’s screams. “Yeah, no, this is pretty important stuff. Hang on, I’ve got Green Lantern here, he needs to, ah, consult with you about some very pressing—”

Hal grabbed the phone. “Jason? I need some help with Siege, pay very close attention here.”

Jason’s voice sounded muffled and far away. “Lantern? You’re under siege? Where— _oof_ —are you? Roy, on your left!” Another sound like maybe something had just collided with his middle.

“No, Siege the video game, you idiot. Listen, Tim said you were a Siege master, and I keep getting my ass handed to me in this one part, so can you—”

“Oh Tim said? Tim said? You hand the phone back to that fucking little motherfucker right now, you tell him for me—” Hal held the phone away from his face as the stream of profanity spewing into his ear achieved truly Shakespearean dimensions. Tim was laughing.

“Sorry," Tim said. "I was just kidding, Jason is the worst video game player in the history of he known universe, the man can barely play Pokemon. The last time I got him to play Siege with me he literally screamed and threw the controller as soon as someone came at him. It was beautiful."

"You're a strawberry frosted asshat douchecanoe." Hal chucked the phone at him.

“Hey I have an idea,” Dick said. “What if I managed to bring one of those trays of food up here?”

Three heads swiveled. “You think you can execute that maneuver?” Hal said.

“Oh please. This is a move I perfected when I was ten. I’ll even take orders if you got ‘em.”

“Oh hell, then more of those crab things for sure. Damian what are you _doing_ , are you actively conspiring to kill me? We are supposed to be on the same side here!”

And so a night that could have been one of the worst in living memory – that had all the potential components of an emotional nightmare, in fact – turned into one of the best nights he had had since getting out of Watson. Dick made his way back upstairs with not one but two trays of food (no clue how that had even been logistically possible), the controllers were tossed back and forth with much shouting and trash-talking and spilling of Coconut Lime water, and they got louder and louder – so loud, in fact, that they almost didn’t hear the voice in the doorway.

“Well isn’t this interesting,” Bruce said. He was leaning there, his hands in his pockets, and had evidently been there for quite some time. 

Hal set down his crab canapé and looked at the floor. The room went silent. “Dick,” Bruce said. “How has your conversation with the mayor gone?”

“Ah. . .”

“And Tim, your conversations with Countess Dutzel-Dorssenheim regarding Wayne Tech’s Berlin expansion, have those been productive?”

“I was. . . actually just gonna. . .”

Bruce fixed them with a sharp glare. “Criminals,” he said. “Thugs. Scofflaws, all of you.”

“Bruce, this was all my fault,” Hal said. 

“Oh I have no doubt of that.” He picked his way over the discarded trays of food and balled-up napkins, and settled into a chair that Damian hastily cleared for him. He cast a weary eye at the screen, and the numerous bodies being blown to bits in the background. 

“Well doesn’t this look wholesome,” he sighed, and bent for a controller. “All right, deal me in.”

“Wait—really?” Hal said. “You don’t have to do party stuff?”

Bruce grimaced. “Trust me, at this point no one knows or cares where I am. I am entirely incidental to the evening’s festivities.”

“Should we maybe go liberate Alfred?”

“Oh, you know,” Bruce said, fiddling with the joystick and investigating how to move, “Alfred doesn’t have to know absolutely everything that goes on, does he? Hang on, what on earth is going on here, I responded with appropriate force but this individual is stubbornly—”

“Here,” Dick said, grabbing the controller out of his hand. “Like this. Okay, there are five of us, and technically we could do one team, but I say we make it fun and do two teams.”

“I’m with Green Lantern,” Damian declared, and Hal ruffled his hair, evading Damian’s swats at him. 

“So Tim and I will take you two on, and Bruce. . .”

“I’ll play with you and Tim. Jordan looks like he needs to learn a lesson.”

“Oh is that so, we’ll see about that. Here, hand me that, Imma name our teams.” And he typed in _OG Robins Plus Bat_ for Dick and Tim’s team, and for his and Damian’s team, _Has Actual Superpowers_.

“He doesn’t any more,” Tim pointed out, but Hal shrugged.

“I was mainly meaning me on account of having enough superpowers for pretty much everyone in the universe, but you know, if you had them once I figure it counts.”

“Well, I have worn the ring,” Bruce said. “So technically—”

“Which does _not_ count, are you even kidding me? Get outta my face with that. All right buckle up, better put down everything you’re holding and prepare to get your asses handed to you, here we go.”

They settled into desultory warfare, but the most enjoyable part was how wretchedly bad Bruce was at just about everything. You would have thought that at least some of his highly developed reflexes and combat skills would transfer to a video game, but apparently no. He would scowl in concentration, and then jerk the controller spastically at exactly the wrong moment, causing Dick and Tim to groan and flail and struggle to make up the lost ground, while Hal and Damian were high-fiving each other and laughing at the other end of the sofa. Finally they had had enough.

“Did you just shoot me in the head?” Bruce said incredulously.

“Had to be done,” Dick said. “Don’t look at me, I wanted to play Mario Kart.” But it did the trick, because after disposing of Bruce the teams were neck and neck, until Dick took a grenade to the head (“Hah hah hah,” said Hal, the bottom half of whose body was blown off the very next second) so it ended up being a battle to the death between Tim and Damian.

“I’ve got fifty that says Shorty takes it,” Hal leaned over and whispered to Bruce.

“And I’ve got a hundred that says he doesn’t,” Bruce said quietly. “Or is that too rich for someone who drives a Honda?”

“Cannot believe I forgot what a cocknozzle you are. You’re on.”

Bruce smirked and settled back into his corner of the sofa to watch the carnage, which ended in Damian’s victory, though the amount of bloodshed required to get there was intense, and left even Hal wincing. It was like the last four minutes of The Godfather on continuous repeat, right down to the guy getting shot in the eyeball, but Damian was exultant – literally bouncing off the back of the sofa and every piece of furniture in the room. 

“You have met your master, Drake!” he shouted. “You have been vanquished, destroyed! Kneel before your superior, lick the dust that clings to my shoes! Your shame and ignominy will live forever, and my glory will be eternal!”

“Don’t make me regret throwing the game, you little twerp,” Tim said, and Damian launched himself, a ball of fury, across the room, intercepted by a large green hand that re-inserted him in his chair as he struggled and hissed and fought. Dick got him distracted by booting up Mario Kart, and the two of them were off and running. Hal suppressed a yawn.

“Probably time for me to go find my ride,” he said quietly to Bruce. The boys did not appear to be stopping any time soon, and he knew well enough they could do this till dawn, and would, on the slightest provocation. 

“Ah,” Bruce said. “About that. I have some unwelcome news. When I last saw him, your ride was engaged in a drinking contest with several members of the minor Swedish nobility. It did not appear to be going well.”

“How not well?”

“Have you ever tried to out-drink a Viking? Oliver is passed out cold. He’s underneath a glass-top table in the conservatory, where they dragged his body. I’m afraid your ride has ditched you.”

“Son of a bitch,” Hal said. “I don’t believe it. Except I do, of course. And I’ve had like one scotch, and that was like five hours ago. Come the fuck on.”

“Sorry. You’re going to have to sleep here for the night, but the even more unwelcome news is that every room has been spoken for. People fly in from all over the globe for this event, and it’s part of the foundation’s hospitality to accommodate them. And those rooms that have not been officially spoken for are, shall we say, unofficially spoken for.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Hal sighed. 

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll find you something. Come on,” Bruce said, with a nudge at Hal’s leg. “Let’s leave them to it. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. Follow me.”

Hal got up and stretched, rubbed Damian’s shoulders but got shrugged off – the boy was deep into Mario Kart, and had long forgotten any interest in the Green Lantern. Tim was watching Damian with a bemused expression on his face, and Hal wondered as ever just how much of their irritation with each other was genuine, and how much was habit. He trotted after Bruce, down the dark silent hallway of the boys’ rooms, and up the small stairway at the end of the hall. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Bruce said. “If you’d rather not I understand of course, but I thought you’d feel more comfortable somewhere you were familiar with. I’ll sleep in the cave of course,” he said, opening the door to his room. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Hal said. “I’m not putting you out of your room. I’ll take the sofa. It’s comfier than the bed anyway.”

“It is at that,” Bruce said. He was loosening the tie of his tux, shrugging off his jacket. “And I hope you don’t mind, but I never drink at one of these functions. I prefer to save my drinking for after, in celebration of having survived another one. I’m planning on pouring myself an excellent bourbon, can I interest you?”

“Sure, why not.” Hal settled into the corner of the sofa and stretched his legs toward the fire, which was crackling merrily. Alfred must have come in here earlier and gotten it ready. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. 

“Tired?”

“I’ve transcended tired. Hey, you’re not really pissed about me snaking Damian away from the party, are you?”

Bruce sat down with his bourbon and handed one to Hal. “Good God no. I’m grateful you kept him occupied, because a bored Damian is a Damian likely to start trouble. He was probably already climbing the walls when you found him.”

“Ah, literally. We had fun executing a great escape though. He took me up this tunnel thing I had never seen, like some godforsaken fucking mineshaft in the middle of your house.”

Bruce gave a short laugh. “I bet he did. The converted dumb-waiter, of course. My father had the stairs installed, to give me something to climb.”

“No shit? I never knew that one.”

“No shit. It was after a colossal fight between him and my mother, actually. I had a very bad habit of climbing on things I was not supposed to, such as sheer stone walls fifty feet above slate pavements, that sort of thing. How it is I’m alive today I have no idea. My father believed that my mother was too soft on me, and that the climbing was because I hadn’t been punished enough for it. The compromise was to encourage me to climb inside, in safer areas.”

“So they basically built you a climbing wall.” 

“They did indeed. I loved it because it led right to my parents’ room, and it made it easy to sneak in there.”

“Oh yeah? So you could try on the ballgowns, play in the make-up, that sort of thing?”

Bruce gave a thin smile. He revolved his bourbon in his fingers, studying it. “Not really,” he said. “I used to sneak into their room at night and sleep on the bench at the foot of their bed. I was afraid of the dark, but I was forbidden to have a light on in my room. So I would lie there in terror until I knew everyone had gone to sleep, then use the dumb-waiter stairs to climb into their room and curl up on the bench. With any luck my father wouldn’t even notice me in the morning.”

Hal took a thick slug of his bourbon. There was no denying the man had excellent liquor. “Jesus, I don’t even know where to start with that story.”

“It does have its layers.”

“Hey,” he said with a grin. “You ever hear something you weren’t supposed to, if you know what I mean? Mom and Dad getting a little freaky?”

Bruce was back to examining his glass. “No,” he said. “Surprising, maybe, considering I slept on that bench almost every night. I don’t think they had that sort of marriage, actually.”

“What sort?”

“A happy one. Anyway, the end of the story is that Alfred bought me a nightlight with a very long cord, so I could turn the switch on and off while lying in bed. If my father came to check on me, I could quickly switch it off, and voilà, the darkened room that was the ideal of every Victorian child-rearing manual. It sounds draconian, I know, but my father meant well. His parents had probably done the same thing to him.”

“Only he’s dead, so you can’t say that he was a prick.”

“Good to see your appreciation for nuance hasn’t changed. Draconian, by the way, means harsh or severe.”

“Oh my fucking God, I hate you.”

Bruce chuckled quietly, and Hal knocked his knee against Bruce’s, sloshing his bourbon a little. “Careful,” Bruce said, “that’s the good stuff. So, childhood story for childhood story: I get one now I think.”

“Well fuck,” Hal said, settling deeper into the sofa. He propped his legs up on the tufted ottoman and closed his eyes. “There is no way you do not already know every single thing there is to know about my fucked-up after-school special of a childhood, but hit me. I can take it.”

“Whatever happened to Rusty?”

Hal’s eyes flew open. “Wait, really? That’s your question? You want to know about my dog?”

“I do.” 

“It’s not exciting, I’m sorry. Like everything else in our life, it got too expensive, so we had to get rid of it.”

“Where did he go?”

“I have no idea. I think probably the vet found him a home. I don’t even know how Amber got him in the first place. I mean, the odds are better than good that she had stolen him to begin with. Or that some meth dealer made her a deal, who knows. Anyway, the dog got a better deal than I did, so no worries there. Hey, wanna go find some ice cream?”

Bruce’s brows lifted. “Ice cream,” he said. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. All I’ve had tonight is a metric assload of those little canapé thingies, and a man’s gotta eat. Sometimes a man’s gotta eat Hӓagen-Dazs. Let’s go raid the kitchens. Come on, it’s like three in the morning, the house is bound to be safe by now. Let’s do it.”

“You’re serious.”

“When am I not?”

Bruce heaved himself up with a groan. “If we get caught by Alfred,” he said, “I hope you know I’m rolling on you.”

“I would expect nothing less. Hey you think there’s any salted caramel truffle?”

“Only one way to find out,” Bruce said, slipping his shoes back on.

By unspoken consent they avoided the boys’ wing, and made their way to the opposite end of the house by stealth. Once Bruce stopped him on the stairs, a hand raised. They held themselves immobile. A woman was wandering the stairwell beneath, humming quietly to herself. She was the only awake person they saw; everyone else was draped across a sofa, or curled up in a wing chair – in the case of one bald man, hugging a potted palm. The woman drifted to one side, then lurched back. She was directly in their path. And then she removed her dress in one swift motion over her head. She was completely naked underneath. She was magnificent. She made Hal’s mouth water. Still humming a little to herself, she artfully draped the dress on a lighted ficus tree in the corner, then wandered back the way she had come. Hal turned to Bruce.

“I cannot fucking _believe_ I have never been invited to this party before,” he hissed. Bruce just beckoned him on to the kitchen.

They left the lights off when they made it to the kitchen wing. The moon was bright enough, through the wide windows. Bruce rummaged while Hal hauled himself up on the center island. “There appears to have been a purge,” Bruce said. “Several flavors are notably missing. Also, several of these cannot possibly have been purchased by Alfred. No caramel truffle, I’m afraid. Might I interest you in a Banana Peanut Butter Chip?”

“Sure, hit me.” Bruce handed him a pint, and dug out the rum raisin for himself, along with two spoons. They ate in companionable silence, Hal swinging his legs on the island, Bruce leaning against the counter.

“So listen,” Hal said, poking at a chocolate chunk. “I need you to know I did not actually plan on being here tonight. I didn’t know where Ollie was taking me, is what I’m saying. I wouldn’t have done that, just showed up here.”

“Well I’m glad you did,” Bruce said. He was excavating around the raisins, like Hal knew he did. He would come back around for them at the end, because he ate ice cream like the freak he was. 

“Yeah me too. Did your date go home early or something?”

“I don’t usually have a date for events like these.”

“Yeah. Sorry. None of my business. That was an asshole thing to say.”

Bruce gave his spoon a thoughtful lick. “It wasn’t. And it is. Your business, I mean.”

Hal kept his eyes on his ice cream. “Oh. Okay. Well, I guess someone whose business it is might ask, how is that ‘pleasant’ relationship going?”

He didn’t get an answer, so he looked up to find Bruce’s eyes on him. “Tell me,” Bruce said, “how would you describe flying in space for the first time?”

“Ah—I don’t really—”

“I’m guessing you described it as mind-blowing, and beautiful, and life-rearranging, and any number of similar adjectives. But I seriously doubt you would have described it as pleasant. Pleasant is the opposite of significant. Pleasant is how one describes something undemanding, something that does not come close to touching one at one’s core.”

Hal set his ice cream down. “If you define a word for me one more time, so help me—”

“I just meant, I would have defined our relationship as many things, but ‘pleasant’ is not among the adjectives I would have chosen.”

Hal said nothing to that. There didn’t really seem to be anything to say, and Bruce wasn’t wrong. Mind-blowing. Beautiful. Life-rearranging. He wondered if Bruce had chosen those words because those were the words he thought about when he thought about what they had had together. Before Hal had thrown a lit match on it. Before Bruce had fanned the flames. Before, before, before. 

“I am still so fucking pissed at you,” Hal said.

“Really. Well, same.”

They watched each other. Bruce was leaning against the opposite counter, not more than three feet away, but it might have been a moat filled with alligators. And he knew in that moment that Bruce would never, ever cross it. Not once a door had been shut on him, would he try to open it ever again. But Hal was good with doors. He hopped down from the island.

“How’s the rum raisin?” he said. 

“Comfortingly ever the same.”

Hal put himself in Bruce’s space, so close they were inches apart. Didn’t touch him. “Mine was pretty good too,” he said, “though the banana is maybe not something I would do again. Listen, I’m gonna ask if I can kiss you, and I know there’s a better than even chance you’re gonna say no. But I’m gonna keep asking. Not in some creepy way, and not in some ‘this asshole won’t leave me alone’ kind of way, but I am gonna keep asking, every chance I get, in every way I can. Because I gave up once, and I am not ever doing that, fucking ever again. I walked out once, and I know it, I know what I did, and I can tell you every reason why and it won’t make a goddamn bit of difference, it’s not an argument either one of us is ever gonna win, but every time you tell me to go away, I am gonna keep standing here, and I am gonna ask one more time, and then one more time after that, because—”

Bruce leaned forward and caught Hal’s mouth with his, just gently. A nudge of lips against his, more than a kiss, really. Every cell in Hal’s body stuttered at it. He had that same feeling he did the first time their lips had ever made contact, after that stupid fight where they had beat each other half to death and Hal’s lips had been swollen and bloodied. That same feeling of brushing against impossible danger, that feeling of _this should not be allowed._ Well. He hadn’t been wrong about the danger part.

Bruce straightened, and Hal leaned forward, kissing Bruce now. Not letting any other part of their bodies touch. Bruce was kissing him back, and they were being so quiet, so careful with each other. Their hands hadn’t even touched.

“Can we go upstairs?” Hal whispered. “Nothing more needs to happen, I swear, I’m just gonna fall asleep standing here.”

“Sure,” Bruce whispered back, and he laced his hand in Hal’s. It was that touch that broke Hal. Their hands clasping each other felt more intimate than their mouths, somehow. Bruce tugged him to the side door out of the kitchen, and they kept their hands joined all the way back up to his bedroom. When the bedroom door was closed (and locked, because lesson learned) behind them, they leaned against it. It seemed okay to just lean there for a while, and Hal didn’t remember his sleepiness of before. It felt like they might not have anything else figured out, but this they definitely knew – that it was the rest of the world on that side of the door, and the two of them on this side. That felt like maybe the only thing they did know, but then again, maybe that was the only thing to know. 

Hal leaned closer to Bruce and kissed at the side of his face, his jaw, nuzzled at his neck. “Sweetheart,” Bruce murmured against his face, and Hal brought his hands to Bruce’s face and held them there while he kissed him, kissed him with all the words he had always struggled to say and only now discovered.

* * *

Tim and Damian turned from the screen as he came back into the room, and Dick almost laughed to see an identical scowl on both their faces. How did they even do that? 

“Where’s the ice cream?” Tim said.

“Ah, no ice cream.”

“What?” Damian looked outraged. “What do you mean, there’s no ice cream? There most certainly is, I was down there just yesterday and saw—”

“Forget the ice cream, all right, it’s not going to happen. Are we clear?”

Damian’s scowl had become murderous. “Fine,” he said, vaulting over the back of the sofa. “Then I’m going to go get the ice cream.”

“Nope.” Dick caught him mid-air and slung him, fireman’s carry, over his back. “Nope nope nope with an extra side of nope sauce, sautéed in sizzling nope and drizzled with a soupçon of flaming _nope_.” He dumped Damian back on the sofa, still kicking and swearing, though mostly in Arabic so Dick was willing to let it slide. Tim was just looking confused.

“Are you sure?” he said. “I could have sworn I put some banana chip in there a few days ago. No one else around here eats it.”

Dick gave him a glare. “Just trust me on this one, guys. No one leaves this room. I declare lockdown. For reasons. All right?” He hopped over the sofa and settled himself between the two of them. “Now. Who’s up for some Minecraft?”


	7. Everything Is Not All Right, And That's Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I might have been mistaken about the chapter count, so my apologies about the continued upward revision there. There is a brief epilogue after this, to be posted shortly.

He had always worried, before, that Bruce was actually having a terrible time in bed with him, or that he was somehow not enough, or not smooth enough, or experienced enough, or enough of something, but he had missed how the truth was, while appearing to worry about Bruce, that had in fact been a way of worrying about Hal. He had thought he was being unselfish, but the reality was, it had only always been all about him. 

“That’s some pretty good insight, there, huh,” he had boasted to Dinah at some point recently, and her eyes had barely flicked up from her notepad.

“A plus plus,” she said, expressionless.

“See, a less mentally healthy person might say, all right, my therapist is making fun of me, guess I better go cry now. But I can recognize that for the vote of confidence it actually is, because you must think I’m doing pretty good if I can withstand some friendly banter about my various mental issues, right? So every time you say something snarky at me, all I’m hearing is _good job Hal, I’m proud of your progress_.”

She had narrowed her eyes at him, and he had grinned. “You’re rethinking that ‘only outwardly a narcissist’ diagnosis, aren’t you.”

“A little bit, yes.”

He thought about that conversation lying in bed with Bruce that night. The truth was, they didn’t actually do much of anything at all. They fell onto Bruce’s enormous bed and just made out for a long time, and sometimes they didn’t make out but just lay there looking at each other, touching hands, just being quiet together. There was so much to say, but on the other hand there was nothing to say, so maybe it all evened out. 

He was trying to turn over a new leaf about being a less selfish lover, and that only derailed a little bit, because while Bruce had probably taken out his irritation at Hal by fucking his way across the east coast, Hal had not, actually, so his body was being a little not-great at the whole ‘now we are going super slow’ thing. So the periods of rest in between making out were more so that Hal could get himself under control and not throw his body on top of Bruce’s thick beautiful body and grind himself until he came his ever-living brains out, because not cool. Not at all cool.

“Tell me what you want, baby,” Hal murmured, between kisses. Bruce moved Hal’s hand down to the bulge in his tux, and Hal just gave him a slow rub, something to grind against. 

“Can I—” Bruce whispered.

“Anything.”

“Your mouth,” he said, and Hal’s chest knocked with joy at that, that Bruce would ask that, and he realized that Bruce never had actually asked that, in bed – had always, always waited for Hal to offer, for Hal to feel comfortable, because that was just what Bruce did. Hal sucked him so good and slow. He fucking worshipped Bruce’s cock, which was easy to do, after all, because it was Bruce’s cock, and practically a national monument already. The first time he heard Bruce gasp, he had to pause for a second, because he thought he might come just from the sound. 

He let himself take a long time. Let Bruce take a long time. Bruce was doing that delicious slow thrust thing he did, with his fingers digging into Hal’s shoulder. They still had most of their clothes on, just zippers unzipped and jackets shrugged off. Bruce was clearly okay with this ‘now we are going slow’ thing too, because usually Bruce came pretty fast from being sucked, but things were much more laidback tonight. Much, much more laidback. Was he doing everything right? Should he stop and ask? Or would that make it about him again? He tried a slightly different angle, thinking maybe that was it. If he could get a hand up him – but they weren’t all the way undressed, and maybe full naked was not on the menu tonight. Or maybe Hal had read this all wrong, and this wasn’t the reset button he thought it was, but one of those things where exes sometimes fell back into bed with each other, and in the morning nothing would have changed, and the thought clutched him in the chest, but he would not let those thoughts intrude, this was abut Bruce, only Bruce, so if he could just try a little harder—

Bruce pushed him firmly away, and sat up. “Shit,” he said. He swung his legs over, his back to Hal.

“What’s wrong? Did I—”

“It’s not you,” Bruce said harshly. “I’m just—” He rubbed at his forehead.

“Do you. . . I could go, if you’d rather I—”

“No. It’s not—it’s just that I’ve recently had an increase in medication, and it’s, ah, making things a little difficult. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Hal said. “Come here. Please lie down. Just lie down with me.” He pulled at Bruce until he fell back into the bed with him, and he kissed at his face, his hands, his mouth. It was a kind of torture, your body teetering on the divide but not able to cross over it, until the pleasure became pain. He knew the kind of frustration Bruce was feeling – intense on a normal day, but probably scalding right now, considering what was going on between the two of them, all the careful re-assessment. He tried to remember the things Bruce had done with and for him, when the Zoloft had been doing the same thing to him. 

“So, ah, this increase in meds, that wouldn’t be because of me, would it?”

Bruce aimed a level glare at him, and Hal winced. “Yeah, okay, sorry, that sounded way less narcissistic in my head.”

Bruce rolled onto his back and lay there, and closed his eyes, and Hal recognized the signs of Bruce sinking into meditation, calming his breath and his motions. Hal rested quietly alongside him. He really wanted to take the rest of his clothes off, because the tux that had looked so awesome on him some seven hours ago was really not feeling so awesome any more, but that was probably moving things way too fast. 

“If I ask you a thing,” Bruce said, his eyes still closed, “will you tell me the truth?”

Hal thought about it. “Yes.”

“No matter what it costs you to answer?”

“No matter what.”

“Then tell me what really happened to your dog.”

Hal lay there unmoving. Bruce didn’t stir or open his eyes. He was just waiting. Hal knew he would wait all day if he had to. “You’re an excellent liar,” Bruce said. “Someone who knew you less well would never be able to spot the tells. But it’s still a lie.”

“Can I ask why you are fixated on my fucking dog?”

“Call it a whim.”

Hal fell silent. Bruce continued to wait, not moving a muscle. “I did tell you the truth,” Hal said. “He was great, but we couldn’t afford him. Stopped taking him to the vet for the longest time. And then buying his food became an issue. And then we ended up having to move to another place, and the new place wouldn’t take a dog that big. This was when I was like twelve.”

It hadn’t struck him before that that was Damian’s age. He tried to picture himself alongside Damian, and failed entirely. He felt like he had never been that young. “I had a buddy at school who said he would take him, and in my head it was only temporary, like we could get him back or something. Who knows, maybe it wouldn’t have worked out, maybe he never even talked to his parents. But in my head I had it all fixed. This was when Buck was living with us.”

Bruce was still just lying there with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his rumpled shirt. Serene as a tomb effigy. The studs winked and caught the light, on his every inhale. Hal wondered how expensive they were. For that matter, he had borrowed his from Ollie, so he was pretty sure he was wearing a car payment tucked into his buttonholes. Or more likely an actual car. 

“So one day,” Hal continued, “Buck got mad about something. Mad at Amber, who knew what the fuck those two were fighting about. I tuned it out like I always did. And somehow it became about the dog, how the dog was eating us out of house and home, the dog needed to go, not eventually but like right then, right that second. And Buck got his gun and said he was gonna take care of it the way a man took care of things. He took me with him, out into the woods. Said he was gonna teach me how to be a man. And he gave me the gun and made me shoot Rusty in the head. Told me he would shoot me instead, if I didn’t. So I did it. I shot my dog in the fucking head. He made me dig the grave and put him in it. I was sobbing the whole fucking time.”

He settled himself beside Bruce, in exactly the same position. Hands folded on his abdomen. Bruce was still saying nothing, but his eyes were open now. “So,” Hal said. “If you were looking for a story to help your dick deflate, I guess that would probably do it, huh.”

“I wasn’t,” Bruce said. “Come here.” And he started in on Hal’s shirt, carefully removing the studs and setting them on the bedside table. He tugged at Hal’s cummerbund, then his pants and socks, and then started in on his own. When they were naked, he pulled the duvet up around them, and Hal settled into his arms. 

“Listen,” Hal whispered. “I just want you to know, I am not expecting everything to be fixed here. I know what I did, I know how I fucked up, I know all that. Tonight does not have to be some big stupid thing where everything is magically all right.”

Bruce just quietly stroked his back. He tucked Hal’s head under his chin. “You know,” he mused, “someone once said to me that I fuck things up with people because when they offer me a second chance, I don’t know how to take it.”

“Who the fuck told you something like that?”

“Some narcissist I know.”

They fell asleep like that, and it was enough to be pressed close to Bruce, to feel his arms around him, to press against Bruce when he stirred. It wasn’t until his body began to wake, close to dawn, that it remembered _hey that sex thing you promised me earlier didn’t actually happen_ , and he shifted just slightly away from Bruce so the man wouldn’t wake up feeling Hal’s boner poking holes in his thigh. But Bruce flicked a lazy eye open and tugged him closer. 

Their fucking was quiet and slow. Bruce turned Hal on his side and snugged up against him, and he jerked Hal with long lazy strokes. He did this thing where he kept his other hand wrapped around Hal’s middle, holding him still, so Hal couldn’t really move around much, but just had to give in to the feeling of it. It always made him writhe worse than anything. He arched his neck back and made a little sound in the back of his throat at it. Bruce was slowly fucking against his ass, rubbing that unbelievable cock into his crack, giving himself the friction he needed. 

“I’m sorry, I’m really gonna come,” Hal gasped, and he was coating Bruce’s hand in wet, and he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting and thrusting. He groaned at it, or maybe that was Bruce’s groan. His ass was covered in wet too, where Bruce was coming up against him. 

“Shit,” Hal moaned. “Oh fuck.” He had held out for maybe two minutes before exploding in Bruce’s hand. It had just felt so good.

Bruce was kissing the back of his neck and wiping them off. Then he tugged Hal with him to the other side of the bed and wrapped them back in the covers. Hal settled back on his chest.

“Here is where you go back to sleep for another twelve hours, isn’t it,” Hal whispered. 

“Shhhh.”

Bruce’s arms tightened on him. Hal gave a soft laugh. “Okay babe, but I need to go to the bathroom. At some point you will have to let me go.”

“No I won’t,” Bruce said, and Hal acknowledged the justice of that, settling in deeper.

* * *

Oliver woke to an angry glare, floating directly above him. How it was that it was there he couldn’t quite figure out, but there it was. He tried to sit up and his head made contact with the bottom of the glass-top table he had passed out underneath. The angry glare resolved itself into Damian Wayne’s face. The kid was perched on the table looking down at him. 

“Pay up,” he said.

“Oof,” Oliver moaned. He fell back and rubbed at his head. “Oh Jesus Christ. Oh motherfucking goatshitting Jesus on a stick. Oh Christ help me.” He tried rolling over, but there wasn’t much room under the table. Somehow he got himself extricated, crawling out on his hands and knees. The room was still spinning. 

“Pay up,” the kid said again. “I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Now I expect payment.”

Oliver blinked, squinted, tried to get his eyes to focus. “Kid,” he managed. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. Give me a goddamned minute here.”

The tiny angry ninja was still perched on top of the table, glaring at him. Oliver struggled to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’m good. Hang on.”

He had apparently passed out in the atrium just off the conservatory, and just outside the glass door was the fishpond. He stumbled out the door and knelt beside the fishpond. He doused his head underwater, then came up and shook like a dog. He scrubbed at his head, and came back inside to find the kid still glaring at him.

“All right, I’m up now. Follow me.” The kid hopped down and trailed after him. Oliver made his winding way through the house, which had not begun to stir yet, though it was full light. There were still bodies draped over various pieces of furniture. When he got to the front doors, they were propped open, and the last of the remaining cars had been parked by the valets in the wide circle. Oliver spotted his and made a beeline for the red Lotus, the kid close on his heels.

He popped the trunk. “You got a place to store all this?” he said.

“Leave that to me. Show me.”

Oliver lifted the trunk open. The kid’s breathing quickened. “Acceptable?”

“Acceptable,” Damian said, surveying the seven cartons of Red Bull tucked into the Lotus’s trunk. 

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“I have extensive training in negotiation, you should not feel bad about coming away with nothing.”

“Aren’t you just the most precious thing ever. Hey kid, point me in the direction of the Advil, all right?”

“The what?”

“Pain meds. Headache pills. Fucking anything, all right? Just point me at it.”

“Pennyworth keeps a full supply of narcotics in the cave. You may avail yourself of anything you find there.”

“Yeah,” Oliver said. He rubbed at his head, as much to shield it from the light as anything. “Nothing closer by, I guess? With fewer stairs?”

The kid just glared at him with that same angry frown that he was beginning to figure out was just the kid’s face. “Fine,” he sighed. “Forget it.”

Oliver wandered off from the Lotus, leaving the kid to collect his own loot. He weaved his way back inside the comforting dimness of the house, and made it to the main staircase. The house was pretty convoluted, but he had the basic idea of where he was heading, and the thing to do, as always, was just trust your instincts.

* * *

Hal woke to an earthquake that shook the bed. 

“Ermph,” he managed, trying to wrap himself back in the duvet. The earthquake was now a weight that had settled onto the bed – more specifically, Hal’s spleen. The earthquake smelled like ass. What the hell was happening?

“Hal,” said the earthquake, in what it probably imagined was a whisper. “Hall-e-o. My man. My dude. Bro of my heart. How are you man?”

He struggled to open his eyes. “Oliver?” he managed. “What are you—fuck’s sake, get off me, what are you doing?”

“Hal Hal Hall-e-o,” Oliver said, rolling over onto his back and mercifully off of Hal. He was in between Hal and the insensate mountain of pillows that was probably Bruce. “Do you have some Advil?”

“Do I—what? No I do not have Advil, what are you talking about? Also, man, you have to get out of here, this is—this is not cool.”

“But your bed is very very nice,” he moaned. 

“It’s also very very occupied, you idiot. Now come on, you have to—oh my fuck, why do you smell like an aquarium?”

“Hang on,” Ollie said, and he rolled off the bed. Or rather, rolled directly over Hal to land on the floor. He started rummaging through the bedside table. “There’s got to be some meds in here somewhere.”

“Oh my God,” Hal sighed. “Ol, are you still drunk?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening, man. The last fucking thing I remember was the Stoli, and some dude named Lars, and then all these fucking knives in my skull, I just need it to fucking stop, and I can’t—oh fuck me, what the hell is wrong with the cap on this bottle, why will it not—”

Hal’s hand shot out and grabbed it from him. “Good Christ, you’re a mess. Why do you do these things to yourself?”

Oliver snatched the bottle back and shook six out into his mouth, then lifted the bedside decanter to his face. The water spilled down over his beard. He wiped his mouth. “You’re a fucking ingrate,” he said. “The things I do for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go take like the mother of all showers. And a steam bath, yeah, that’s the thing. Bruce got one of those? What am I saying, of course he does. All right, I’ll see you once I’m human again.” The bathroom door shut behind him, and then quickly opened again. 

“Hey listen,” Oliver said, sticking his head around the door. “One last thing. Dinah doesn’t need to know absolutely everything about last night, right? Because I am one-hundred percent a grown-up and I make my own decisions, but not everybody needs to know about all those decisions, am I right? I know you get what I’m saying here.”

“Oh, as in I don’t tell Dinah that twenty-four hours after she left town you drank yourself under the literal furniture? Or I don’t tell her that I definitely saw you stuffing eleventy thousand Korean beef mini kabobs in your ostensibly vegetarian face last night?”

Oliver pointed a finger at him. “Ingrate,” he said, and he slammed the door. There were scrapes and bumps happening on the other side of the door like maybe he had decided to rearrange some of the bathroom furniture. Or possibly had fallen on top of it. Or more possibly, had decided to move the furniture into the shower to give himself something to pass out on top of. Hal heard the water start, followed by an inhuman groan of relief. 

The mountain on the other side of the bed stirred and shifted. No human body was yet visible, but a voice emerged. “Tell me,” the voice said, and it was a voice like a block of concrete being dragged over corrugated metal by six ropes of rusted barbed wire. “Tell me Oliver Queen was not just in my bed.”

“He’s having a little bit of a hard time this morning.”

Bruce raised his head, his morning death-squint aimed at Hal. His hair was going in about nine different directions at once. “Tell me Oliver Queen is not in my shower.” 

“Babe. It is like the great 90s philosopher Ginger Spice says. If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.”

Bruce groaned and his head sank back into its fortress of pillows. “Or was that Scary Spice,” Hal mused. 

“I slept with a Spice Girl once,” Bruce said. Hal propped on his elbow to get a better look at him. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? Which one?”

Bruce rolled over and squinted at the ceiling, rubbed at his face. “I’m trying to remember,” he said. “Posh, I think.”

“Oh my Jesus fucking God. Wait, was this before or after Beckham?”

“Along with Beckham, actually.”

Hal made a choking sound. “You’re lying.”

“Not really.”

“Are you even a real person?”

“There are competing theories on that one.”

Hal stroked his chest, running a thumb along the valley of breastbone, enjoying Bruce’s small involuntary intake of breath when the thumb brushed against his nipple. “Hey,” he said. “It’s Saturday, but I’ve got a flight to log at some point today. Just one though, so it won’t take that long. You maybe wanna come with me? Or is that—you probably want more space than that, huh. I remember we weren’t so great about that before, but I can be better.”

Bruce folded his arms behind his head and appeared to consider. “There’s going to be an excruciating period of time, isn’t there, in which you attempt to be Hal Jordan 2.0, the new and improved version. Any idea about how long that’s going to last? Just for the sake of planning.”

“Until lunch tomorrow, definitely for sure.”

“All right, I can live with that. And speaking of improvement. Last night. That was not exactly the sex that I was hoping we could—”

“Baby. No no no no no. You are not gonna do that, not with me. Listen to me, any time I am naked and in bed with you, I promise you it is already the best sex of my life, okay? I fucking promise you that, even if we don’t really do anything. I just—not with me, all right?”

“All right,” Bruce said, and they settled back under the covers together, listening for a while to the sound of the water running in the next room. “So. How long do you suppose he’s going to be in there?”

“No clue,” Hal said, letting his eyes drift shut again. “He’s a pretty aggressive exfoliator.”

He thought of what Dinah had said a while ago, about how sex was not part of the Everything Is All Right show. He should have said something like that to Bruce, something sensitive and psychologically profound. But Bruce probably would have looked at him like he had suffered a head injury, and made another remark about Hal Jordan 2.0.

“Okay, I’m just gonna name some names,” Hal whispered. “I’m gonna name some celebrities, and if you _haven’t_ slept with them, you let me know. You don’t even have to say anything, just tap once. I’m thinking of dividing into categories, so we’ve got Sports, Film, Music, and Politics. Unless you feel that Film and Music should be combined into one category?”

“Do you never shut up,” Bruce murmured.


	8. Epilogue

Hal followed Janine into the office with a jaunty step. Bruce looked up from behind his desk, the same irritated incredulity on his face. 

“How is this even possible,” he said. 

“Well, I had some business I wanted to discuss with you, so I made an appointment a while ago,” Hal said cheerily. He seated himself in one of the chairs in front of the massive desk.

“I saw you at _breakfast_ this morning.”

“Well, and now you’re seeing me here, so your day is only looking up babe, am I right?”

“Thank you Janine, that will be all,” Bruce sighed, and she swished toward the door.

“Hey Janine,” Hal called, “I think I will actually take some coffee this time if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” she said, with a silken sweetness that meant only murder, and the door clicked behind her. 

“Well?” Bruce said, in the silence that followed. “You went to all the trouble to make an appointment, so let’s hear it.”

“Well now I don’t want to, because you look irritated.”

“That is just my face.”

“Mmm no, that is actually your irritated face, which I recognize because I see it a lot.”

“Let’s think about that one.”

“And the thing is, I need you to keep an open mind here, because I have a business proposition for you. I need you to. . . look at some stuff, and tell me what you think. Like honestly, what you really think.”

“I’m intrigued.”

Hal reached into his jacket for the sketchpad. He held it in his hands for a minute. Now that it came to it, he was actually nervous about this. And yes, maybe Bruce was right and he should have just talked to him like a normal person, but he had wanted him to take it seriously, and this had seemed like his best bet. He opened the notebook and laid it in front of Bruce. 

“So these are just some. . . rough designs of stuff. Most of it I came up with when I was working a desk job at Ferris, but a lot of it comes from piloting, especially the recent models I’ve been working with.” Bruce was flipping slowly through the pad, his face impassive.

Hal rose and came around to the back of the desk so he could look at what Bruce was looking at, because the silence was making him more nervous. He leaned on Bruce’s chair. “So, uh, some of that is integrative alien tech, which obviously I am not suggesting we introduce into Earth tech – yeah, like that page there – but the other stuff is just my ideas about tweaking current designs. It’s all stuff no one ever asks test pilots about, because by the time we’re working with something the design is already fixed, and what defense contractors are looking for from test pilots is performance review, not engineering and design stuff. They just want to know, at what speed will this motherfucker burst into flame, not like, how can we make it better. So my idea is—okay, keep going, it’s on the last page there.”

Bruce flipped to the end and contemplated the design. He steepled his hands. He stared at it for a long time. “There is no air to ground capability here,” he said. “There are no missiles.”

“I know. I—I know. It’s laser technology.”

“Hal, airborne laser tech has stumbled over the problem of beam control for decades. Even with the best of position sensors, you can never compensate for—”

“Unless you do that.” Hal leaned over and flipped to the previous page. Bruce stared at it.

“That can’t work,” he said.

“True, unless you also do _this_.” And he flipped to the page just before that one. “Which doubles down on the number and placement of positioning sensors, which normally you can’t do, right, because of the weight, but you can lighten the payload by just trimming here, and here, and by streamlining navigation, here.” Bruce was silent. 

“Look, there’s a reason for laser tech,” Hal said. Bruce’s silence as he stared was making him increasingly anxious. “It’s not just because missile systems are a moneypit, which they fucking are. But laser tech means increased precision, by like an order of magnitude. You can’t just shoot up a village with lasers. You have to keep focus on target for at least ninety seconds, and your target has to be the size of a quarter. And the destruction zone of a laser hit is one-tenth that of an explosive missile hit, which means – which means the entire point, which is reducing civilian casualties.”

Bruce just leaned back in his chair and looked at Hal, hands still steepled. “And you want Wayne Tech to build this,” he said. 

“I want _someone_ to build it, and you’re my best shot. Because look, if this can just be built, it would change the game. I know it would. Everyone would want that plane, because it’s fucking fast, and it’s fucking beautiful. And if we could address civilian casualties by reducing air-to-ground destruction in the newest generation of fighter jets, instead of waiting for politicians or military leaders or whoever else to get their heads out of their collective asses, then maybe that’s our best hope for living in a better world. While also flying fucking sexy planes, which I also happen to care about.”

Bruce continued to study the design, his eyes flicking over it. It was good. Hal knew it was good. He just wished Bruce would say something. But Bruce was opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out a pad of paper. He handed it to Hal, along with a pen. “Write that,” he said. “Write down exactly what you just said.”

Hal picked up the pen. “Yeah? For what?”

“For your speech to the board.”

“Oh no way,” he said, putting the pad down. “No no no, I’m not—Bruce, I’m not the one to—”

“You are exactly the one. Those are exactly the words. Wayne Tech is going to build this, and in addition to being a force for good in the world, we are also going to make a ridiculous amount of money. The only question is, do you want your cut as a post-production percentage of sales, or as a design sale up front?”

“I. . . can’t do that.”

“Not this again.”

“Bruce. This actually and for once has nothing to do with you and me. But I can’t take money for this design, from you or anyone. This design is part of my whole ‘promote peace in the galaxy’ thing, which I took an actual oath about and shit. So, I don’t know, buy me a lifetime supply of salted caramel truffle or something. Also, I think Janine has zero intention of bringing me this coffee.”

“Correct,” Bruce said. 

“It’s good, though, yeah? Like, from an engineering standpoint? I mean, I know the concept and design is solid, but some of the engineering—I mean, that’s really more your thing, so I was hoping. . .”

Bruce rose. “It’s brilliant,” he said. “You are brilliant.”

“Why do you only say these things when I have no witnesses?”

“Because you’re insufferable enough as it is.”

Hal grinned, and Bruce grazed a kiss on the side of his face. “Here,” Bruce said, slapping the sketchbook on his chest. “Board meeting is one week from today. Take this home and work on your speech. Read me a rough draft of it tonight.”

“Uhhh, tonight?”

“Not losing your nerve now, are you?”

“No, but something tells me you’ve forgotten that tonight is Clark’s birthday, and we’re picking him up at seven.”

“That’s not until Thursday.”

“Babe. Today is Thursday.”

“Not possible.”

“You’re going to have to trust me on this one. So wrap it up early this afternoon, and no patrol tonight, because I told Clark we would definitely not be late. He has a reservation for us at his favorite karaoke bar.”

“Karaoke?” Bruce said faintly.

“You wanna know why I didn’t talk about these design ideas at breakfast? Because you do not listen to a goddamn word I say at breakfast. We had this exact conversation this morning. I reminded you about the party and everything.”

“Huh,” Bruce said. 

“Also, you better get on the stick here, because my present is ballin, and I’m gonna make you look bad.”

“What did you get him?”

“I got him a 1930 Remington typewriter, still in the case. I found it online like weeks ago. It is a thing of beauty, he is gonna weep. I am gonna win tonight so fucking hard.”

“I see,” Bruce said. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could persuade you to put my name on that card as well.”

“I’m not your wife, Wayne, do your own emotional labor. And don’t you dare show up with a gift card like the giant social embarrassment you are.”

“Mm.” Bruce was playing with his shirt a little, and smiling. He tugged on his belt and pulled him closer for another light kiss. Hal kissed him back, nuzzling at him a little. 

“Your mood sure took a turn for the better,” he said. 

“What say,” Bruce murmured, “we blow out of here and spend the rest of the day doing birthday shopping.”

“Oh I see, it’s all a plot to make Janine hate me more.”

“Surely you’re aware that’s not possible.” Bruce nudged at his mouth, and Hal let him do what he would, let Bruce kiss him harder and slide those incredible hands under Hal’s jacket. But then he stopped, and Hal’s eyes fluttered open to find Bruce just watching him. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Only that you’re correct, you’re not my wife.”

“The powers of observation of a trained investigator,” Hal said, bending his head for another kiss, but Bruce veered off. He kept his arms looped around Hal though. 

“We haven’t talked any more about marriage, is what I’m trying to say. You said no once, quite emphatically, but I wasn’t sure if that was a topic you were willing to revisit, or if that was more along the lines of a final no.”

Hal watched him back. Brushed a finger along his cheek. “You know there are a thousand reasons we can’t and shouldn’t,” he said softly.

“If that’s ‘no,’ you can just say no. You don’t have to ease me into it.”

“It’s not no.”

“But it’s not yes.”

“It’s more of a, I don’t need a piece of paper or a ring to know what’s true about us. And I think our lives are complicated enough as it is – the identity stuff, I mean. I don’t wanna do anything that puts you at risk, or that makes some asshole reporter start following a scent that’s gonna land you or your family in trouble. Or that makes someone start asking questions about exactly who that Hal Jordan character is, anyway.”

“All very good points.” Bruce bent in to kiss at the side of his neck, which was dirty pool, because that always made the back of Hal’s knees buckle, and he fucking knew it. 

“Bruce—babe, stop.”

“Why?”

“Because you are really getting me hot, and in five seconds I am gonna drag you into the executive washroom and fuck you.”

“Do it,” Bruce husked in his ear. 

“Yeah? That what you want?”

So his meeting with the chairman of the board of Wayne Tech ended with fucking said chairman in his marble-paneled bathroom, which was definitely the best end to a business meeting he had ever had, but since he had only had like two business meetings in his life, he really had no basis of comparison. But as fucking went, it was glorious. He pulled Bruce into the bathroom and locked the door behind them, and he fisted Bruce’s shirt and yanked him close for a melting kiss.

“Stop holding back,” he whispered. “I’m not gonna break.” And Bruce didn’t ask him what he meant, because Bruce knew as well as he did. The more he paid attention to Bruce, and to what Bruce needed, and what Bruce wanted – and the less attention he paid to himself – the more he became aware that Bruce was always holding back a bit, always wary somehow, especially when they were in bed together. He didn’t know how to make him stop it other than just saying it, so he finally said it (maybe while having a very classy bathroom fuck was not the ideal place and time, but whatever), trusting that Bruce would know what he meant.

Bruce’s hands on him were rough, and frantic, and hungry. Bruce’s mouth felt like it was everywhere. “Fuck yes,” Hal panted. Bruce got his hands in Hal’s hair and yanked his neck back and sucked until Hal felt the bruising, until he was groaning at the pain and pleasure of it. Hal all but tore their clothes off. “Tell me there is something that can pass for lube in this room,” Hal said, and thank fuck for overstocked executive bathrooms, because of course there was hypoallergenic lotion in some fruity little bottle. 

Bruce fucked him like that, while he was holding onto the sink. Watching themselves in the mirror. It was such a fucking turn-on, to know that Bruce was stroking into him like that because it felt good to Bruce, because it was what his body was demanding, craving. He was getting off on Bruce’s getting off, on Bruce’s need. He reached around and dug his fingers into that glorious ass, and then he let the warmth of the construct snaking around Bruce’s leg rest there – Bruce would tell him if it was a no.

“Yes,” Bruce gasped hoarsely, and so Hal let the construct slide up his leg, and up, and let its green heat slowly ease into Bruce’s body. He let its girth increase, just bit by bit, until it was big enough to bring Bruce some serious pleasure, which it must be, because the noise Bruce made was hardly human, and his fingers were all but clawing at Hal. 

“Hal,” Bruce said hoarsely. “Don’t stop—fuck—God—”

Hal sank into the sensation of being fucked by Bruce while he was fucking Bruce, as Bruce rocked forward into Hal’s body. Hal kept the rhythm of the construct matched to Bruce’s own thrusts, until he could feel Bruce shaking all over, could feel him—

“Oh God not yet,” Hal moaned, to his own body, but it was no good, no good. He let himself groan long and low with it, with the cum that spurted out at every thrust of Bruce’s cock. It felt like it was never going to end. Bruce’s fucking only got faster, his fingers in Hal’s neck more brutal. It felt like Bruce was trying to climb inside his body, and when he was there he would only fuck him harder. Bruce had never fucked him like this. Hal went limp with it, and the pleasure in his body just kept going. 

“Going to come in you now,” Bruce murmured, and then he was, he was, Hal heard his choke and gasp, and he stopped letting the construct thrust, just held it right there on the sweet spot while Bruce came, and then—yes, God, sweet sweet victory—Bruce cried out, his body contracting around the construct fucking him while he was spasming inside the depths of Hal’s body. There was so much cum. Hal knew there was so much. Hal dissolved the construct then, and Bruce fell forward, and it might have been Bruce’s cock in him that time, but by God he had just fucked Bruce seven ways to next Tuesday. He could feel the quiver in all Bruce’s limbs.

Bruce slid and shuddered out of him, and Hal used another construct to give them a soft green place to land on, a pillow that cradled them so they wouldn’t have to lie on the floor. Bruce’s eyes were still closed, his breathing still loud. Hal leaned over him and stroked his forehead. They were both still shaky with it.

“Did I break you?” Hal whispered, and Bruce made a sound like a laugh, and his eyes fluttered open. Hal could see him struggling to focus. 

“You,” Bruce said, and swallowed. He looped an arm around Hal’s neck and pulled him close to his chest, just held him there. They were too blitzed even to kiss; they just rested their sweaty heads together and breathed in each other’s space. Bruce’s thumb was rubbing at the back of Hal’s neck. 

“Yes,” Hal said.

“Hmm?”

“The answer to your question is yes.”

Bruce’s eyes opened, and they were definitely focused now. “Don’t say it and not mean it,” he said hoarsely. 

“I mean it, babe. Let’s go do it. Come on, we’ve got time.”

Bruce blinked, frowned. “We may be talking about two different things.”

“Nah, how long can it take, right? Let’s go to the courthouse, get it done, come on. You and me. Mister and Mister. Look I’m gonna level with you, that typewriter I got Clark was way more than I should have spent, and my bank account could stand a little fattening up, if you know what I mean. Time to go make me a rich man.” And he struggled to sit up, even though he was still a little lightheaded. He had maybe come harder than he had thought. 

“You’re serious.”

“How you figure?”

“Because you’re joking about it.” 

Hal laughed, and Bruce gave a weak laugh too. “You still got those rings?” Hal said, and Bruce’s laugh faded.

“Ah,” he said. “About that. I. . . don’t actually have those anymore.”

“Oh,” Hal said. “Well that’s okay I guess. What did you do, sell them on craigslist or something?”

“Not. . . exactly.”

“Define exactly.”

“I was angry.”

“Babe.”

“And not dealing with my anger especially well.”

“Where the fuck is my wedding ring?”

“The thing to keep in mind is that platinum is a dense, incredibly durable metal with high corrosion resistance. It has any number of practical uses.”

“Such as??”

“Such as laboratory equipment, for instance.”

“Are you trying to tell me you melted down our wedding rings and turned them into a test tube?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, that would be completely impractical. I melted them down and used them as lining for an anode cylinder in the chemical electroscope.”

“Babe, that is not even the most fucked-up thing you’ve done this week.”

Bruce was quiet. He settled back into the soft billows of the construct and closed his eyes. “Wait a minute,” Hal said. “I thought your chemical electroscope was busted.”

“Ah. Well, now we’re coming to the anger part.”

“Melting them down was not the anger part?”

“I found myself increasingly. . . disturbed, by thinking of the metal inside the equipment. It would have been close to impossible to separate out the anode lining, so I melted down the electroscope too. And then I. . . disposed of it.”

“Disposed of it how?”

“By launching it out the artillery bay of the Javelin.”

“At _what_ , may I fucking ask?”

“The sun.”

Hal fell back down and gave himself over to it. He tried to be mad, he really did, but he couldn’t help it. All he could think of was Damian. At his core, beneath all the genius and skill and complexity, Bruce was really just Damian Wayne with a modest increase of social skills and a limitless bank account. Hal could not stop laughing. “Oh Christ,” he gasped, “if you do not marry me right this fucking afternoon, I swear to God. You are four, you realize that? Like literally fucking four years old.”

“The day I am lectured on maturity by Hal Jordan is the day—”

“Is the day you marry me,” Hal said, leaning over and kissing him to shut him up. 

Bruce’s eyes were solemn when Hal raised up. Bruce was stroking his back. “You don’t want anything more celebratory than that?” he asked, watching Hal closely. “With guests, and a cake? We could do something like regular people do, you know.”

Hal’s laugh was deep and low. “Oh yeah, you and me, we’re great at being regular people. And no, I don’t want all that shit. I don’t want. . .” He fumbled at the words. He didn’t want Bruce to think he meant something he didn’t, or that he was somehow ashamed. “I don’t want this to be for anyone else. I don’t want us to be for anyone else. Can it. . . can it just be for us? Like, something we don’t even have to tell anyone? Is that a thing we could do? Is that a thing you—could that be what we do?”

“It is,” Bruce said, and pulled Hal gently back down to him. They settled back into the construct, letting it cradle them a bit longer. He knew he hadn’t explained it right. Maybe he couldn’t even explain it to himself. Maybe Dinah would think they were both fucked in the head. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t.

“I do have a wedding present for you though, as it turns out,” Bruce said after a while. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. I didn’t know it was going to be a wedding present when I bought it, but we’ll call it that.”

“Or, you can give it to Clark, and you’ve got your birthday shopping done.”

Bruce winced. “That’s not really the best idea.”

“What, did you get me that monogrammed cock ring I’ve been asking for?”

“No,” Bruce said hesitantly. “It could go considerably more awry than that. It was an impulse purchase, which seemed like a great idea at the time but it’s only now occurring to me that you might not agree. It might not be the best present to give as a surprise.”

“Well the only presents that should never be surprises are dogs and vasectomies, so babe I’m pretty sure that whatever you—”

“It’s a dog.”

“You. . . what?” 

Bruce was just watching him. Hal shook his head, like maybe he had not just heard that. “Okay, let me just review a sec. You shot my wedding ring into the sun, but you bought me a dog.”

“It wasn’t a ring you had ever worn, so technically—”

“Is there any _reason_ you thought I needed a dog?”

Bruce was silent. Hal narrowed his eyes. “Or did you just think that if you could get me a goddamn puppy, that would fix everything that ever went wrong in my life? Like, maybe shooting my dog in the head was the moment where things went off the rails?”

Bruce sat up, and pushed himself off the construct. He began gathering his clothes. “This conversation is not over, asshole,” Hal said.

“I know it. But any second now that construct is about to drop me on a very hard tile floor, and I thought it best to get up before that happened.”

Hal scrubbed at his face and laughed. He watched Bruce get dressed. “What kind of dog?” he said, as Bruce was zipping his pants.

“A Labrador.”

“Of course.” Hal sighed and stood up. The construct disappeared, and he began hunting around for his clothes. You wouldn’t think that in such a small room they could have gotten lost, but his shirt was presenting something of a mystery before he remembered that had actually come off in the office, before they had even gotten into the bathroom. 

“Not yellow,” Bruce said. At first Hal thought he was talking about his shirt.

“What is?”

“The dog. I didn’t get a yellow Lab. I thought that might be. . . disrespectful to Rusty’s memory, to suggest he was being physically replaced like that. I bought a black one. And she’s not a puppy, she’s fully grown. I got her from a rescue organization. Her life has not exactly been an easy one either.”

Hal concentrated on washing his hands at the sink, mainly not to have to look at Bruce. “I’m offworld a lot,” he said.

“Well, there’s a young animal lover at the Manor who would be happy to step in and take care of her in your absence.”

“Of course you bought the black one,” Hal said, drying his hands. He glanced at his watch. “Okay, we’re gonna need to step on it, it’s almost noon. I’m also starving. Can we hit a bodega or something on our way to the courthouse?”

Bruce was leaning against the bathroom wall, hands in his pockets, just watching Hal. “You still want to do this,” he said, and it wasn’t a question, it was clearly a statement of surprise. 

“Yeah babe, I still want to do this. You thought I wouldn’t want to marry you just because I’m mildly pissed about the dog thing?”

“Mildly?”

Hal sighed again. “I’m not something to be fixed, all right? I’m not a Robin, I’m not a project, and I’m not some analogue for a rescue dog. To the extent that your brain has trouble figuring that out sometimes, I get pissed, yeah.”

“I know. But my sons are not projects either.”

“I get that. I know. I shouldn’t have said—babe, I love your kids. And after this afternoon. . . after today, I’m hoping I can share a little bit in. . . being part of their lives. I’m not saying I’m their dad, I know who that is, and I don’t want to take that over, I just mean that when we get married, I’m marrying more than just you, and I know that.”

Bruce crossed the little room and took Hal in his arms. He kissed him with an obliterating kiss, his hands on either side of Hal’s face. Hal kissed him back just as fiercely. He laced his hand in Bruce’s and pulled him out of the bathroom, because he could already tell Bruce was happy to head into round two of fucking, and they would end up getting nothing done today if one of them did not have an eye on the schedule. It was a continual surprise to him that he frequently had to be the responsible one in this relationship. 

He stopped dead in the doorway. “Uh,” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

Hal pointed to the table beside the sofa. There was his shirt, inside out and tossed over the back of the sofa. And there on the table was a mug of coffee, still warm enough that the delicious, perfectly-brewed smell of it was settling on the room. Janine had come into the room and left his coffee there. Not by the desk, but here, closer to the bathroom. The bathroom where she had most definitely heard them being not quiet at all. And now he was going to have to walk out of here with Bruce, past her chilly, knowing smile, and for the rest of his life he would have to know that Janine knew exactly what he sounded like when he was getting fucked, and it would be behind every perfect smile she aimed at him, forever and ever. 

“She’s broken me,” Hal said. 

“Welcome to my world,” Bruce whispered in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because this is the sort of thing no one ever asks an author, I will tell you that the working title of this story has been "Labrador," from the very first save. The moment of Hal thinking of Bruce as being like his childhood dog was the beginning of the story for me and the first thing I saw in it, so that's why it was the working title. And then it became a reminder to me to keep circling back around to that dog. And now the title pleases me so much that I think I will keep it like that, stored in my documents forever.
> 
> No, I don't particularly like Labs. They have this thing where their body gets really thick unless you are constantly exercising them, preferably water exercise, and I'm not a huge fan. Also their fur is very oily (because of its water-repellent properties) so unless you bathe them like it's your religion, they can start to smell like a rotting seal. Get a mutt, people.


End file.
